With Russia’s Exit, Norway Becomes Europe’s Energy Champion

“It was four times as expensive as a normal year,” said Svein W. Kristiansen, an owner of Smed T. Kristiansen, a family firm in Stavanger that makes parts for oil installations and offshore wind farms.

Norway should be able to maintain its high gas flows to Europe in the coming years. In 2020, the government put into effect temporary tax changes to ensure that the pandemic did not halt investment in the industry. These incentives have led to a burst of new drilling and development, worth an estimated $43 billion.

An oil and gas company based outside Oslo, Aker BP, plans to invest $19 billion to increase output by a third by 2028. “We are drilling exploration wells all the time,” said Karl Johnny Hersvik, the chief executive.

Over the next few years, output from these new fields should be enough to offset the declines from older ones, according to Mathias Schioldborg, an analyst at Rystad Energy, a Norwegian-based consulting firm. Scenarios modeled by the government show oil and gas output in Norway reaching a peak toward the end of this decade, followed by a long decline.

It is doubtful, though, that Norway can supply significantly more gas to Europe. The network of pipelines feeding Norwegian gas to the continent has little additional capacity.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/business/energy-environment/ukraine-russia-war-europe-energy.html