** Pareto Securities analyst Tom Erik Kristiansen made thefollowing statements at the start of the second day of thefirm's oil conference in Oslo on Thursday:
** "We think more companies are likely to follow BP bymerging into strategic partnerships on the Norwegian ContinentalShelf (NCS) or be potential sellers of their Norwegianportfolios, which for some of them could become non-core overthe coming years."
** "We have already seen some of the large utility companiesselling large parts of their portfolios or completely exitingthe NCS. We expect this group to continue to be a net seller."
** "At the same time we see a limited number of likelybuyers on the NCS and that the transactions done so far, likeBP's sale to Detnor and Dong Energy's sale to Faroe Petroleum,being done at discounts to our valuations of 50 percent or evenmore."
** "We think this market balance will offer greatacquisition opportunities over the next year and highlight Detnorske as one of our top picks."