OSLO, 8 July 2007 — The state-run Norwegian oil company Statoil has made a major new gas discovery in the Norwegian Sea, the Oil Directorate reported Friday. Statoil has now ended its exploratory in newly discovered well that stores more than 3 billion cubic meters of gas and lies about a kilometer northeast of Midgard, part of the Åsgard Field in the Norwegian Sea. Statoil plans to tie the well, drilled as both an exploration and production well, to its infrastructure at the Åsgard Field. It’s now been plugged and due to be developed in 2008. Statoil said that oil prices will keep rising until alternative energy starts paying off. That can mean prices will reach more than $100 a barrel within a few years.