Norway's Statoil has announced that two recent North Sea oil discoveries are connected, representing possibly the region's biggest oil find in the last 30 years.

Statoil said in a statement Tuesday that the Aldous and Avaldsnes oil discoveries together contain between 500 million and 1.2 billion barrels of recoverable oil — significantly more than previously thought.

The Norwegian energy producer's vice president for exploration, Tim Dodson, described the combined discovery as “giant,” adding that Norway had not seen a similar oil discovery since the mid-1980s.

Statoil has a 40-percent stake in the Aldous Major South prospect and a 40-percent stake in the Avaldsnes prospect, which is operated by Sweden's Lundin Petroleum.

Experts expressed surprise at the size of the discovery, which shows that the North Sea still has potential as a source of crude oil after decades of drilling.