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Norway on Track for Record Gas Production This Year


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Norway on Track for Record Gas Production This Year

Business

Category: Energy

The Troll A platform rocks like a boat as North Sea waves pound its four gigantic concrete legs, but monitors inside the control room show a steady flow of natural gas continues unabated — enough to meet the needs of 10 million homes in Europe.

Norway is on track for record gas production this year after Statoil ASA put an end to technical issues that limited Troll’s capacity. And deep within the windswept jumble of pipes and machinery that top the platform 65 kilometers (40 miles) off the Nordic nation’s coast, two newly installed compressors stand ready to maintain the field’s unequaled capacity well into the next decade.

“These compressors provide an extra muscle, they strengthen the Norwegian gas machine,” Grete Haaland, senior vice president for asset management at Statoil’s marketing, midstream and processing business unit, said in a presentation on the Troll platform Wednesday. “They increase Troll’s ability to deliver more gas in the short and long term. That’s extremely important for us.”

Statoil is investing in its biggest gas field as the opportunity, but also the competition, expands in the European market. Demand in the region is growing for the first time in years, while safety concerns constrain output at its biggest onshore gas field. At the same time, prices are under pressure as Russia boosts shipments and increasing numbers of liquefied natural gas cargoes arrive from the Middle East and Africa.

Source: Bloomberg

Published: March 28, 2024