Repsol SA plans to shut down its unprofitable Varg oil deposit in the North Sea, the first time a Norwegian field will be closed because of the crude-price collapse. “Varg has been cash-negative since August 2015,” the company said in a Dec. 1 presentation to Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority obtained by Bloomberg. Further investments in the field aren’t economical, it said. Repsol acquired Varg as part of its $13 billion purchase of Talisman Energy Inc. in 2014. It has since terminated its contract with Teekay Corp. for the field’s floating production vessel, which will leave the area on Aug. 1, Grethe Elise Foldnes, a spokeswoman for the Spanish company, said by e-mail. Repsol’s decision is rare. Even though oil prices have plunged 70 percent since mid-2014, only 0.1 percent of global production has been curtailed on the grounds that it’s become unprofitable, according to a report this month from […]