Norway deputy oil minister to meet China's CNOOC executives as Oslo-Beijing relations thaw

Norway's deputy oil minister will meet top executives of China's biggest offshore oil producer CNOOC on Thursday to discuss possible cooperation ahead of the first visit by a Norwegian prime minister to China in a decade, officials said.

CNOOC, which operates the 140,000 barrels per day Buzzard field offshore UK via its subsidiary Nexen, said in 2010 it would be interested to come to Norway.

The row over the Nobel Peace Prize award to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo that same year froze relations between the two countries.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will be in Beijing on April 7-10 to meet President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Keqiang and other Chinese officials, in the first visit by a Norwegian premier since the countries resumed full diplomatic relations in December. (Writing by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)