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Finding Hod and Valhall was more closely linked than one might suppose. Amoco had caught whiffs of both fields before Phillips Petroleum made the nearby Ekofisk discovery, but it made its breakthrough only came after the latter had begun production. And that was after something pretty close to espionage by Amoco.

Negotiations on a division of the North Sea were still under way between the Norwegian and Danish governments when Norway awarded its first production licences in August 1965. The boundary with Denmark was still only temporary.