Energy firms operating offshore Norway expect investments in oil and gas activities to be lower this year compared to 2025 as many field developments are being largely completed, Statistics Norway’s latest quarterly survey showed on Thursday.
Last year, total investments in oil and gas activity, including pipeline transportation, stood at $28.8 billion (273 billion Norwegian crowns), a record high and up by 8.7% compared to 2024.
For 2026, operators on the Norwegian continental shelf now estimate investments to be about $26.9 billion (255 billion crowns), higher than the estimate given in the previous quarterly survey but lower versus the actual investments in 2025, Statistics Norway’s survey showed.
An initial estimate for 2027 shows investment would be $21.2 billion (201 billion crowns) for oil and gas activities offshore Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer.
The expected decline over the next two years is the result of several fields now completed and online, which is reducing investment in development of new resources.
Norway’s tax incentive package from 2020, which encouraged investments in fields approved by end-2022, was the reason why Norway’s oil and gas investment hit record highs in the past three years.
“The smallest of these have either started production or will start production during 2026,” Norway’s Statistics office said.
Yet, a few more projects will have their plans submitted this year, “which will increase the field development estimate for 2026 beyond what is included in this count,” it added.
Despite the best exploration results in four years in 2025, Norway will need even more exploration and discoveries, as well as investment in new oil and gas projects, to reverse an expected decline in output from the late 2020s, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said last month.
Leading up to 2030, the directorate expects the investment level to decline gradually due to the completion of development projects without equivalent new projects to replace them, Norway’s offshore energy regulator said in its annual report on the activity on the Norwegian Shelf.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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