Oslo — Deliveries of piped natural gas from Norway to continental Europe and Britain should hit record levels this winter and remain strong throughout 2025, with few maintenance outages scheduled, system operator Gassco said on Friday.“If we look ahead now, the upcoming winter season of 2024-2025, the planned activities are very few,” Alfred Hansen, head of system operations at Gassco, told Reuters.
All operators on the Norwegian continental shelf were focused on maintaining high deliveries and regularity, he said.
His comments come as Europe is facing a less comfortable gas supply situation this winter, after storage sites started emptying unusually early in November amid a spell of cold weather and low wind, driving up demand for gas.
Europe’s gas storage sites are 86.65% full, more than ten percentage points lower than at the same time in 2023, the latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed.
Norway in 2022 overtook Russia as Europe’s biggest gas supplier after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, making any outages at Norwegian fields a possible trigger for higher prices.
“We are again prepared to meet a winter season where both demand and deliveries are expected to be at a record-high level,” Hansen said.
The outlook for the summer was looking good, with fewer maintenance outages planned so far compared with 2024, he added.
Supply via the Gassco-operated pipeline network delivering gas to continental Europe and Britain has exceeded 2023 levels every month this year and totalled 97 billion cubic metres by the end of October, according to Hansen.
Norwegian piped gas supplies hit a record 117.4 bcm in 2017 and came close at 116.9 bcm in 2022.
“So in other words, if we end up with 2024, which is a year that maybe touches our record years or is in that range, then it is at least a very good indicator for expected deliveries in 2025,” Hansen said.
Reporting by Nora Buli; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Jan Harvey – Reuters
