Norway’s oil and gas firms have raised their investment forecasts for 2022 and 2023 as more development plans are being made, a national statistics office (SSB) survey showed on Thursday.

The country’s biggest business sector now expects to invest 175.3 billion Norwegian crowns ($17.50 billion) in 2022, up from a forecast of 172.8 billion made in August, the SSB said.

Next year’s investments are seen at 149.7 billion crowns, up from a previous view of 135.3 billion, but the figure is expected to increase as companies plan to approve more projects by the end of this year, it added.

Spending on new offshore fields is only included in the survey when companies submit plans for development and operation (PDO) to the authorities.

Oil companies are expected to approve more than a dozen new projects by the end of this year, when Norway’s temporary tax incentives, which were approved in 2020 to support offshore investments, expire.

Rising costs and supply chain bottlenecks, as well as market uncertainty could, however, put some projects on hold.

Last week, Equinor EQNR.OLpostponed a decision on whether to develop the Arctic Wisting oil discovery, which would have become the world’s nothernmost producing field.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)