Norway gas exports expected to stay close to last year's record levels

By Nerijus Adomaitis and Nora Buli

OSLO (Reuters) -Norway exported a record amount of natural gas in 2024 and volumes are expected to stay near this level in the coming years, official data and forecasts showed on Thursday.

Norway became Europe's largest supplier of natural gas following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, providing about 30% of all gas imports to the European Union.

The country's overall gas output, which includes volumes pumped via pipelines as well as liquefied LNG exported on ships, rose by 6.9% last year to a record high of 124 billion cubic metres (bcm), the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD) said.

Out of the total, the amount of Norway's gas that was exported via pipelines rose by 7.8% in 2024 to 117.6 bcm, just exceeding the previous record of 117.4 bcm reached in 2017, export system operator Gassco said.

Gassco operates an 8,800-km (5,468-mile) pipeline network connecting Norwegian gas fields to Germany, Belgium, France, Britain and Denmark.

"Since the transport of gas from Russia through Ukraine ended at the turn of this year, gas from Norway has become even more important," NOD Director General Torgeir Stordal said in a statement.

Norway's overall gas output of 124 bcm was up from 116 bcm in 2023, a year that was heavily impacted by maintenance outages, and also beat a record set in 2022 of 122.8 bcm, NOD data published on Thursday showed.

The Equinor-operated North Sea Troll field produced a record 42.5 bcm of gas last year, accounting for more than 10% of Europe's demand alone, the company said earlier this week.

The NOD forecast that Norway will produce 120.4 bcm of gas in 2025, down 2.9% year-on-year, and will remain near this level until 2027 before a further dip to 110.8 bcm in 2029.

Norway's crude oil output is expected to remain broadly unchanged at 102.2 million cubic meters (mcm) in 2025 compared with 2024, equivalent to about 1.8 million barrels per day, the forecasts showed.

By 2029, crude oil output is expected to fall to 81.2 mcm.

The NOD said more exploration as well as investments in the existing discoveries and fields was needed to arrest the expected decline.

"Failure to invest will lead to rapid dismantling of the petroleum activities," it added.

Environmental campaigners, however, have said policies aimed at continuing exploration and new developments contradict Norway's international commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from its most polluting sector.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis and Nora Buli, editing by Terje Solsvik and Jane Merriman)