* Shell, Chevron, Total and others buy seismic data for area
* Jan Mayen area may contain 566 mln barrels oil equivalent (Adds background)
OSLO, July 1 (Reuters) - Oil majors including Royal DutchShell, Chevron and Total areinterested in the potential oil and gas resources off Jan Mayenisland in the Arctic, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate saidon Monday.
These three companies, as well as London-listed Tullow Oil, Sweden's Lundin Petroleum, Norway's Detnorske and Japan's Idemitsu, have boughtseismic data the agency has gathered since 2011.
In recent months oil companies have cooled in theireagerness to explore for hydrocarbons in the Arctic, partly dueto Shell's problems with its Kulluk drillship off Alaska.
But the Arctic may still hold 13 percent of the world'sundiscovered oil and 30 percent of its gas.
The NPD mapped out the sea bed around Jan Mayen island,situated to the east of Greenland and north of Iceland, andthinks it could contain some 566 million barrels of oilequivalent in reserves.
Oil companies may be keen to explore the area, but Norwegianenvironmentalists are against such efforts, as Jan Mayen and itssurrounding seas are a nature reserve.
Oil exploration in the area has become politicallycontroversy in Norway in recent months.
In the same area, Iceland awarded its first oil licenses toValiant Petroleum and Faroe Petroleum in December, as itlooks to make use of its energy resources and boost its fragileeconomy. (Reporting by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by David Holmes)
