Norwegian saleable gas production posts preliminary 6% annual fall in 2019: NPD

London — Norwegian saleable natural gas production posted a preliminary 6% fall on an annual basis in 2019, with December coming in broadly flat year on year, data released Friday by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate showed.

Preliminary saleable gas production -- which includes gas produced for LNG export -- stood at a preliminary 115.21 Bcm in 2019, marking a 6% decrease compared with the 122.20 Bcm seen during 2018 and slipping further behind the 124.16 Bcm record high from 2017.

Original forecasts for the year were 121.721 Bcm, although saleable gas production slipped behind forecasts during the second half of the year due to a heavy planned maintenance schedule during the third quarter allied to several unplanned outages on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

For December, preliminary saleable gas production came in at 10.71 Bcm, up 7% on a monthly basis but broadly similar to the 10.75 Bcm seen during December 2018.

Saleable gas production had been forecast at 10.639 Bcm for the final month of last year, marking the first time that preliminary saleable gas production stood ahead of forecasts since April.