Researchers from the Uppsala University in Sweden believe that Norway will reach peak production already within ten years, and that output subsequently will decline rapidly, NTB reports for newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
The Swedish study is contradictory with the assurances from Norwegian authorities, which say that the gas era will last for decades more.
The expectations about undiscovered gas resources and new findings on the Norwegian shelf have been exaggerated, the researchers maintain.
-I do not understand why Norwegian authorities have not been open about the fact that the gas production this quickly will reach its peak and then decline rapidly, Professor Kjell Areklett says. He underlines that the his estimates have been checked and endorsed also by several other researchers.
The authorities meanwhile nurture high hopes for the petroluem potential of the country’s northern waters. Both the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea have become top priority areas for exploration and drilling, but new major fields are yet to be found in the area.
Estimates from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate show that gas production is to increase to an annual 112 billion cubic meters by year 2014. In 2009, Norway produced 103 billion cubic meters of gas and the country’s exports account for almost 20 percent of Europe’s gas consumption.
Meanwhile, Norway’s oil production have already been declining rapidly for several years. After having reached peak production in 2001, the production has declined with a third from more than 170 MSm3 to about 115 MSm3 in 2009.
