Norway will boost its natural gas output in the coming months, keeping production higher than normal through the summer and delivering bigger volumes to Europe at a time of shortages and soaring prices, operator Equinor said.

By postponing some maintenance and making other adjustments, Norway can assist European nations scrambling to fill storages depleted by winter consumption and a reduction in Russian gas exports.

Adjusted production permits from the government will allow the Oseberg field to increase gas exports by around 1 billion cubic metres (bcm) in the period until Sept. 30, while Heidrun can increase by 0.4 bcm for the full year 2022, Equinor said.

“1.4 billion cubic metres of gas meet the gas demand of around 1.4 million European homes during a year,” the company said in a statement.

In addition, the Troll field, the North Sea’s largest source of gas, will be allowed to increase output in the event that other fields face outages, thus improving the overall robustness of supplies, Equinor said.

Norway is Europe’s second largest petroleum producer after Russia, pumping around 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, almost equally divided between oil and natural gas.

Norway supplies close to 25% of gas demand in the European Union and Britain, Equinor said.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)