Press

Oil and gas output will be 222.3 million cubic meters of oil equivalent, down from 226.7 million cubic meters in 2018. That’s also down from an earlier forecast of 229.6 million cubic meters. The NPD expects oil companies to drill 53 exploration wells offshore Norway in 2019, unchanged from last year, as the industry recovers from a recent downturn. Investments in the offshore industry are to rise 13 percent in 2019 to more than 140 billion kroner, excluding exploration. The forecasts confirm that Norway’s oil industry is in full recovery mode, thanks to higher commodity prices but also drastic cost cuts that have made more projects profitable, even considering the recent relapse in crude prices. Still, the NPD again warned that the industry faces a slowdown toward the middle of the next decade due to a lack of new, big projects. - Bloomberg -