Norway oil output seen rising 7% in 2023, gas steady at record levels

Norway’s oil production is expected to rise by 6.9% this year as the giant Johan Sverdrup field ramps up output while gas volumes are predicted to stay unchanged at near-record levels, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) said.

The output of crude oil and other petroleum liquids such as condensate will likely increase to 2.02 million barrels per day in 2023 from 1.89 million last year, the NPD forecasts showed.

Norway has since last year overtaken Russia as Europe’s biggest gas supplier, with Equinor EQNR.OL the top exporter, after Russia’s Gazprom GAZP.MM cut off much of the gas on which Europe previously depended.

The combined volume of oil and gas is expected to rise to 4.12 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) in 2023, up from a preliminary 3.99 million boed last year, the NPD’s forecast showed.

Norway’s overall output is forecast to continue to rise in the coming years, hitting a two-decade high of 4.3 million boed in 2025, just shy of a record 4.54 million barrels produced in 2004, the NPD predicted.

The country’s gas output is expected to stay virtually unchanged in 2023 at 122 billion cubic metres (bcm), or 2.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, the NPD said, in line with a recent government prediction.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)