NEWS

“We expect the production on the Norwegian shelf to go on pretty well until  2020 or 2025, and after that it will fall,” Mr. Reitan said in an interview at  the sidelines of a parliament hearing on Norway’s public financing needs up to  2060.

Norwegian group Statoil and other oil companies operating on the Norwegian  continental shelf are key contributors to Norway’s massive wealth. The country’s  oil and gas revenues were 372 billion kroner ($64 billion) in 2011. It has a  $700 billion oil fund and no net debt.

But the high oil sector activity is likely to fade in the coming decade,  Statoil warned, unless new acreage is awarded and new discoveries made. Norway’s  crude oil output has halved since 2000, although somewhat offset by higher gas  output. Statoil expects the production fall to accelerate sometime after  2020.