Norway's oil & gas production higher than expected in April

Norwegian Offshore Directorate said that Norway's combined gas and oil production in April exceeded the official forecast by 1,2%, despite a slight decline year-on-year.

In April, the total oil, gas liquids, natural condensate and gas production was 0.663 standard cubic metres per a day, which is equivalent to 4,17 million barrels. This represents a 2.4% decrease year-on-year.

Norway is Europe's biggest supplier of natural gases and oil. The output varies month-to-month depending on maintenance and other stops at more than 90 offshore oil fields.

The regulator reported on its website that natural gas production fell in April to 339.8 millions cubic metres (mcm), down from 346.8mcm per day a year ago. This was a 1.3% drop compared to the forecast of 335.6mcm.

NOD's preliminaries showed that crude oil production fell from 1.84 to 1.83 million barrels a day (bpd) during April, compared with 1.84 million in the same period last year. This was 3.5% higher than the forecasted 1.77 million bpd. (Reporting and editing by Anna Ringstrom, Terje Solsvik).

(source: Reuters)