ENTSOG TYNDP 2017 - Main Report

Reserves Norway has been supplying natural gas to Europe for more than 40 years since production began in the early 1970s. Since then, the development of new fields has enabled the continuous increase of gas volumes exported by Norway. However for the past decade the sold and delivered volumes have increased faster than new discoveries have progressed (Reserves and contingent resources  1)  ). Roughly half of the reserves still remain but the overall production could fall below current levels during the 20-year time horizon of this report.

5,000 bcm

3,750

2,500

1,250

0

1973

1975

1977

1979

1983

1985

1987

1989

1993

1995

1997

1999

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

Sold and delivered

Reserves

Contingent resources

Figure 3.20: Evolution of Norwegian gas reserves 1973–2015 (Source: Norwegian Petroleum Directorate)

One of the main challenges for Norway is to decide about the most beneficial way to export the future production. It is not decided yet whether to expand the offshore network to connect new fields to the existing grid and export this production to Europe or to export LNG globally. However, for this solution to materialise, strong sig- nals from European market are required.

 1) Contingent resources mean the estimated recoverable volumes from known accumulations that have been proven through drilling but which do not yet fulfil the requirements for reserves.

Image courtesy of Gassco

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