Gullkronen 2026

Gullkronen is Rystad Energy’s award recognizing and celebrating outstanding contributions within Norway’s oil and gas sector.

After a hiatus, Rystad Energy is proud to announce the 2026 edition, honoring excellence and innovation demonstrated throughout 2025.

The Gullkronen Awards recognize outstanding performance and value creation across the upstream oil and gas sector, celebrating companies and teams that have delivered exceptional results on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The following prizes will be awarded based on 2025 performance, with four nominees qualifying for the final in each category:

Explorer of the Year
Business Developer of the Year
Project Developer of the Year
Field Operator of the Year
New Technology and Innovator of the Year

Location: Victoria Hotel, Bankettsalen, Stavanger

Time: 23 April 2026, 5:30pm - 11:00pm

Dress code: Business formal

By invitation only

The nominees:

This year's nominees have been selected by the Rystad Energy Gullkronen Committee, including external independent representatives, following a thorough review process involving factual assessment and comparative evaluation. All candidates have been evaluated against the established criteria of:

Value creation
Resource or production added
Cost and time effectiveness
Innovation

Explorer of the year award nominees:

Vår Energi - Nine commercial discoveries, finding nearly double the oil produced.
AkerBP - Record-breaking wellbore unlocks Norway's largest discovery Omega Alfa in a decade.
Equinor - Operated eight of thirteen shelf discoveries, adding 133 million barrels.
DNO - Discovered Kjøttkake and quadrupled reserves through Sval Energi acquisition

Business Developer of the year award nominees:

AkerBP - Swap deals with Japex and DNO for growth in the North Sea
DNO - Acquisition of Sval Energi from HitecVision. Largest deal on NCS in 2025
Vår Energi - Acquisition of Ekofisk area re-development growth projects from TotalEnergies
Inpex - Acquisition of Valhall and growth projects Slagugle from Pandion

New technology and innovator of the year award nominees:

Northern Lights JV - CCUS Northern Lights started injection
Shell - Ormen Lange longest power transmission to a subsea compression system
Aker BP - AI and autonomous operations on Yggdrasil
Equinor - Use of AI to create value of USD 130 million across its portfolio in 2025

Field operator of the year award nominees:

OKEA - for strong operations and continued resilience at Draugen
AkerBP - for reserve growth, high regularity, and extending Skarv lifetime
Equinor - for outperforming expectations at Johan Sverdrup.
Vår Energi - for turning Goliat into a stronger growth asset

Project developer of the year award nominees:

Equinor - for strengthening the Barents Sea province by opening the third hub Johan Castberg of 650 MMboe
AkerBP - for combining many discoveries to the new Yggdrasil North Sea hub of around 800 MMboe.
Shell - for pioneering subsea compression at Ormen Lange and boosting gas recovery.
Equinor - for delivering Halten Øst on time, below budget and with more gas to Europe.