Norway’s Gas Production Falls to 4-Year Low
In September 2023, Norway significantly reduced the production of liquid hydrocarbons (LPH) and gas.
This is evidenced by preliminary data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), published on October 23, 2023.
Decrease in liquid hydrocarbon production
In September 2023, liquid hydrocarbon production in Norway amounted to 1.802 million barrels per day.
Compared to final data for August 2023, liquid hydrocarbon production in Norway in September decreased by 211 thousand barrels per day or 10.5%.
According to the final data for August, the volume of liquid hydrocarbons production in the country amounted to 2.013 million barrels per day, while preliminary data indicated a slightly lower value – 2.007 million barrels per day.
Compared to the NPD forecast, production in September was lower by 6.6%.
Oil production in Norway in September 2023 amounted to 1.644 million barrels per day, which is 4.8% less than the NPD forecast and 8.2% below the August level.
In September 2023, 138 thousand barrels/day of wide fraction of light hydrocarbons (NGL) and 15 thousand barrels/day of gas condensate were produced.
Gas production at 4-year low
Natural gas production in Norway in September 2023 amounted to 199.8 million m3/day, which was the lowest level since September 2019.
Preliminary production data lagged behind the NPD forecast for September 2023 by 37.4%, and compared to August the figure decreased by 36%.
The decline in gas production was due to the shutdown of a number of assets, including the Karsto complex.
Let us recall that the Karsto complex, located 30 km north of Stavanger in Norway, provides preliminary treatment and fractionation of multicomponent gas coming from the central regions of the Norwegian continental shelf, including the Asgard and Mikkel fields.
The plant also stabilizes gas condensate coming from the Sleipner area in the North Sea.
NGL is separated from the wet gas before fractionation into methane, ethane, propane, iso- and normal butane, naphtha and stable condensate.
Methane and some ethane are transported via the Statpipe/Norpipe gas pipeline system in Emden in Germany and via the Europipe II gas pipeline system (MGP) in Dornum in Germany.
Also a branch of the Europipe II international gas pipeline is the Baltic Pipe international gas pipeline, through which gas is delivered to Denmark and Poland.
The Norwegian gas transmission system (GTS) operator Gassco has previously provided data according to which gas supplies through pipelines from Norway in January-August decreased by 6.4% compared to the same period in 2022.
In September 2023, supplies dropped even further, due to repair work at the Troll gas field, as well as at several other fields.
Moreover, a number of outages took longer than planned.
In 2022, after the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine and the EU’s desire to replace Russian supplies, Norway promised to increase gas production.
At the end of 2022, Norway managed to increase natural gas production by 8%, to 122 billion m3, and become the main supplier of pipeline gas to the EU, but it was not easy for the kingdom to maintain these volumes.
Already at the end of the 1st half of 2023, pipeline gas supplies to the EU decreased by 9%, to 43.4 billion m3.
