Peak form: Anders Bjarne Moe
Norway oil output 'peaking'
Norway's oil output is peaking at around 3 million barrels per day and will stay at this level for the next four to five years before the country switches focus to natural gas production, a senior government official said today.
"We are sort of on the peak of oil production (and) we will stay here for four or five years and then switch to gas," Reuters quoted Anders Bjarne Moe, director general of the Oil & Energy Ministry, as saying at an oil and offshore conference.
The looming shift to more gas as recoverable oil supplies on the Norwegian continental shelf dwindle will curb the flow of cash into the country's oil fund, which manages assets worth nearly $250 billion or roughly Norway's annual gross domestic product.
Moe said Norway enjoyed the status of a safe energy supplier, noting the UK's strong interest in boostin imports of Norwegian gas to cover growing domestic needs.
However, he said Russia was wrongly "bashed" by some European countries and the US for jeopardising supplies to western Europe at the start of 2006 when it briefly shut gas exports to Ukraine, a major transit country.
Moe said the incident should be seen as one between a gas supplier and its customer who was not willing to pay the market price and not one of Europe's biggest natural gas supplier flexing its muscles amid surging energy prices.
"The one you should bash is the government of Ukraine," Moe said, adding that a planned Baltic Sea gas pipeline to bring Russian gas to Germany would increase Europe's energy security by cutting out transit countries.
The pipeline has stirred criticism in Poland and the Baltic states as well as in Sweden for environmental reasons and fears by the former communist states that Moscow could cut off their supplies without angering affluent clients in western Europe.