Norway will keep momentum for well drilling, natural gas in 2025, Directorate says

(Bloomberg) – Norway’s oil and gas companies delivered record levels of natural gas in 2024 and will drill a similar number of exploration wells this coming year, in a push to offset production declines later in the decade.

Some 40 wells are due to be drilled in 2025, on par with the 42 drilled last year, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said Thursday. About half will be in the North Sea, about 10 in the Norwegian Sea and between four and six in the Barents Sea, the directorate said in its annual report on activity on the shelf.

Norway became Europe’s top supplier of natural gas in 2022, replacing Russian flows cut following the invasion of Ukraine. It now contributes about a third of the continent’s gas and will likely remain a key supplier as European countries use it as a transition fuel amid a green push.

Natural gas sales from Norway totaled of 124 billion standard cubic meters last year, up from a previous record set in 2022 of 122.8 billion standard cubic meters, the directorate said. Total production of oil and gas was as high as it has been since 2009.