Norway’s national oil company, StatoilHydro, plans to cut its exploration spending and is likely to have to borrow to fund its investment programme because of low oil prices, the company said on Wednesday.

Setting out its plans to investors, the first big international oil company to make such a statement since the plunge in oil prices in the second half of the year, Statoil said its strategy remained unchanged, and stuck with its target for production growth by 2012.