EUROPEAN leaders in Germany, the UK and elsewhere have looked to Norway to boost natural gas supplies and ease the surge in prices as Russian supplies fall off. However, a flurry of new offshore projects announced ahead of the expiration of temporary tax relief on production on the Norwegian continental shelf may have reached a peak. For 2022 at least, Norway looks set to achieve a significant increase in output. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said earlier last year that companies operating offshore Norway were on track to deliver 122 billion cubic metres of gas in 2022. "This level is historically high, and up by 8% from [2021]. To put this in perspective, 122 Bcm is the equivalent of close to one-third of the total amount of gas consumed in the EU in 2021," he said during a visit to Prague in October. By comparison, Norway delivered 111.4 Bcm of gas via pipeline to other Europe nations in 2021 and 104.5 Bcm in the first 11 months of 2022, according to ICIS, a London-based commodity pricing and analytics firm. Anders Wittemann, founder of Oslo-based Wittemann E&P Consulting, reckons that gas production from Norway remained roughly on target in 2022, despite the impact of maintenance shutdowns at the Troll and Oseberg gas fields in September. But the consultancy forecasts that Norway's gas production will reach a plateau in 2023 and most likely be falling by 2024 and declining steeply after 2030.
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