Sea Lion Field
proposed oil field in the South Atlantic
Sea Lion Field is an oil field in the South Atlantic Ocean, approximately 220 kilometres (140 mi) north of the Falkland Islands, within the North Falkland Basin. The field is estimated to contain gross recoverable resources of 917 million barrels of oil, making it the largest deepwater oil development in the South Atlantic outside Brazil, and larger than any North Sea oil projects.
The project is operated by Navitas Petroleum Development and Production Ltd (NPDP), a UK-registered subsidiary of Israel-based Navitas Petroleum LP, which holds a 65% working interest. UK-listed Rockhopper Exploration plc holds the remaining 35%.
The project is expected to last 35 years and generate around £4 billion in revenue for the Falkland Islands, which has a population of just under 3,700. The development has been a source of diplomatic tension. Argentina, which claims sovereignty over the islands, has declared the project "unilateral and illegitimate", and the involvement of an Israeli-owned operator has created friction between Israel and Argentina.
The British Government has said that development of the field is a matter for the Falkland Islands Government as a devolved entity, and not part of United Kingdom law, stating "Falkland Islanders' right of self-determination extends to the right to exploit their own natural resources". The project is expected to generate £4 billion in income for the Falkland Islands.
In December 2025, it was indicated that, after prolonged consideration, Rockhopper Exploration and Navitas Petroleum had taken the final investment decisions for the development of Phase 1 of the field and sanctioned the project.
The public source identifies “Sea Lion Field” as proposed oil field in the South Atlantic. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lion, Field and proposed.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q135233606. Authority coordinates are -49.266, -59.255. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sea Lion Field” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.