Norwegian oil output in December 2018 below forecast

Norwegian oil production during December 2018 dropped below expected figures due to technical problems on some fields, according to Monday’s report by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD).

Preliminary production figures for December 2018 show an average daily production of 1,849,000 barrels of oil, NGL and condensate, which is a decrease of 26,000 barrels per day compared to November.

Total gas sales were 10.8 billion Sm3 (GSm3), which is an increase of 0.6 GSM3 from the previous month.

Average daily liquids production in December was: 1,504,000 barrels of oil, 318,000 barrels of NGL and 27,000 barrels of condensate.

Oil production for December is about 2.5 percent below the NPD’s forecast for the month and about four percent below the forecast for 2018.

The total petroleum production in 2018 was about 229,1 million Sm3 oil equivalents (MSm3 o.e.), broken down as follows: about 86.3 MSm3 o.e. of oil, about 21.2 MSm3 o.e. of NGL and condensate and about 121.7 MSm3 o.e. of gas for sale.

According to NPD, the figures for 2018 include volumes of approximately 0,1 million standard cubic meters (Sm3) oil from the test production of the Alta discovery, which took place from June to August 2018.

It is worth noting that the total volume is 9.3 MSm3 o.e. lower than in 2017.