20 October 2026 Production
Norwegian production eases in September as maintenance season bites
Norwegian liquids production averaged 1.90 million barrels per day in September 2026, made up of 1.73 million barrels of oil, 154,000 barrels of NGL and 16,000 barrels of condensate, according to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate's production figures published on 20 October. Oil output ran 0.7 percent above the Directorate's forecast, and 4.1 percent above forecast for the year so far.
The step down from August's 2.07 million barrels per day is the familiar shape of the late-summer maintenance season. Gas told a softer story: sales came to 9.0 billion standard cubic metres, 1.6 billion less than the month before, and average daily gas production of 298.4 million cubic metres ran 6.7 percent below forecast. Total petroleum production for the month was 4 percent below forecast.
For the year to date, Norway has produced about 181.7 million cubic metres of oil equivalents, 5.1 million ahead of the same point in 2025: roughly 80.7 million of oil, 8.7 million of NGL and condensate, and 92.2 million of gas for sale.
14 October 2026 Drilling & Wells
Grimsnes discovery adds up to 50 million barrels near Oseberg
Equinor and its partners have made an oil and gas discovery in the Grimsnes prospect in the Oseberg area of the North Sea, about 140 kilometres west of Bergen, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate announced on 14 October. Preliminary estimates put the discovery at 3 to 8 million standard cubic metres of recoverable oil equivalents, or 19 to 50 million barrels.
Well 30/8-7 S, drilled by the Deepsea Bergen rig in 96 metres of water, found a combined oil and gas column of 54 metres in the Tarbert Formation: 39 metres of gas above 15 metres of oil. The well reached a vertical depth of 3,752 metres and has been plugged and abandoned.
Grimsnes sits in production licence 190, awarded in the 14th licensing round in 1993 and held by Equinor as operator with Petoro and TotalEnergies. The partnership is assessing a tie-back to the existing Oseberg-area infrastructure, the standard route by which discoveries of this size are developed quickly and cheaply. It is the fifth exploration well drilled in the licence, the same licence that holds the Tune field, near Oseberg Sør.
19 October 2026 Drilling & Wells
Vår Energi and Equinor find gas and condensate at Lakris
Vår Energi and Equinor have made a gas and condensate discovery in the Lakris prospect in the Gimsan Basin of the Norwegian Sea, about 170 kilometres northwest of Kristiansund, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate reported on 19 October. Preliminary estimates put recoverable volumes at 0.2 to 0.9 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalents, 1.3 to 5.5 million barrels.
Wildcat well 6407/5-3 S was drilled by the COSL Prospector rig on the Halten Terrace in 218 metres of water, reaching 4,225 metres below sea level before terminating in Lower Jurassic rocks. It found gas and condensate in the upper Tilje Formation across 54 metres of layered reservoir of moderate to poor quality. No gas-water contact was encountered, and the well was not formation-tested.
Lakris is the first exploration well in production licence 1002, awarded in the APA 2018 round. The well will be permanently plugged and abandoned, and the licensees, Vår Energi as operator with Equinor, will assess what the result means for the surrounding acreage.
25 September 2026 Drilling & Wells
Verdandi appraisal lifts the resource estimate west of Stavanger
An appraisal well on the Verdandi and Lillefix discoveries in the North Sea has raised the estimated size of the accumulations, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate reported on 25 September. Before drilling, the discoveries were estimated at 0.6 to 1.9 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalents; the preliminary estimate now stands at 1.3 to 2.4 million, or 8 to 15 million barrels.
The horizontal appraisal well was drilled from the Symra field's subsea template by the Deep Sea Nordkapp rig, about 200 kilometres west of Stavanger, and ran 1,515 metres horizontally through the oil zone. It found a 14-metre gas column and a 44-metre oil column in Heimdal Formation sandstones, with the gas-oil contact 1,776 metres below sea level.
Aker BP operates the well with partners Equinor and DNO in production licence 167. The companies are assessing profitability and a possible tie-back to the Symra field, the route that would turn two small discoveries into production.
26 August 2026 Fields & Projects
Aker BP starts the Skarv satellites a year ahead of schedule
Aker BP has started production from the Skarv Satellite Project in the Norwegian Sea, bringing the Alve Nord, Idun Nord and Ørn fields on stream one year ahead of the original schedule, the company announced. The three fields together hold approximately 120 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents.
Each satellite is a separate subsea development built around one subsea template and two wells, tied back to the Skarv floating production vessel. Aker BP coordinated the three as a single project, and says the satellites produce at a carbon intensity of approximately 4.5 kilograms of CO2 per barrel of oil equivalent. About 60 percent of the project's deliveries came from Norwegian suppliers.
With the start-up, Aker BP says it has now delivered the entire portfolio of subsea tie-back projects it sanctioned in 2022, on or ahead of schedule: a run of smaller fields developed through existing infrastructure rather than new platforms. The licences are shared across Aker BP, Equinor, Harbour Energy, ORLEN Upstream Norway and JAPEX Norge, with Aker BP operating all three.
15 October 2026 Technology & CCS
Troll electrification completed, freeing 2.3 billion cubic metres of gas for Europe
The Troll partnership has completed the Troll West Electrification project after commissioning the first electric export compressor on Troll C, and will not install the second compressor originally planned, Equinor announced on 15 October, having informed the Ministry of Energy of the decision.
Partial electrification of Troll B and C has cut emissions by around 330,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, about 75 percent of what the original plan of development projected, and one of the largest single emission-reduction measures on the Norwegian shelf. Emissions from the Troll area are now approximately at their 1999 level. Troll A was the first platform on the shelf to take power from shore, in 1996; B and C were partially electrified in 2024.
The second compressor would have shut in Troll C production for up to 21 months. Leaving it out is expected to make around 2.3 billion standard cubic metres of additional gas available to the European market across 2027 and 2028, volumes Equinor equates to about two years of consumption for one million European households. Troll has produced at maximum capacity year-round since 2023, and Troll C is expected to operate until around 2050.
19 October 2026 Technology & CCS
EU awards 223 million euros to the Atlas carbon storage project
Aker BP and Höegh Evi have been awarded 223 million euros from the EU Innovation Fund for Atlas, their planned carbon capture and storage network linking European industry to permanent CO2 storage on the Norwegian continental shelf, the companies announced on 19 October.
Under the Atlas design, CO2 is gathered at regional export hubs in Europe and shipped by dedicated carriers to a storage site in the Norwegian North Sea, in the Aker BP-operated licence EXL011, where it would be injected through subsea infrastructure into a saline aquifer more than 2,000 metres below the seabed. Design capacity is 6 million tonnes of CO2 a year, expandable beyond 10 million tonnes.
Atlas was confirmed as an EU Project of Mutual Interest in April 2026. The project is in its Select phase, with a final investment decision targeted for 2028 and first injection from 2031; the Innovation Fund award is subject to that decision being taken.
7 October 2026 Fields & Projects
Snøhvit Future cost rises to 26.5 billion kroner, timeline holds
The updated cost estimate for the Snøhvit Future project has risen to 26.5 billion kroner, Equinor reported on 7 October, against an estimate of just over 20 billion kroner a year ago and 13.2 billion when the plan for development was submitted in 2022. The timetable is unchanged: onshore compression starts in 2029 and electrification in 2030.
The project is about 60 percent complete, and the compressor module was installed at Melkøya, the Hammerfest LNG plant, in August. Onshore compression will hold plateau production as pressure in the Snøhvit reservoir falls, and electrification will cut the plant's annual CO2 emissions by 850,000 tonnes, equivalent to two percent of Norway's annual emissions.
Equinor expects more than 70 percent of development-phase value creation to go to Norwegian companies, with more than a third of that to Northern Norway. The Snøhvit partnership is Equinor at 36.79 percent, Petoro 30 percent, TotalEnergies 18.4 percent, Vår Energi 12 percent, and Harbour Energy 2.81 percent. The revised figures were reported to the Ministry of Energy alongside the proposed national budget for 2027.
11 September 2026 Licensing & Policy
Twenty-one companies applied in APA 2025 as exploration interest grows
Twenty-one companies applied for acreage in the APA 2025 licensing round, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate reported on 11 September, under the headline of growing exploration interest in the mature areas of the shelf. The application deadline was 1 September.
The Directorate is assessing the applications on geological understanding and exploration plans, together with technical expertise and financial strength. The authorities aim to award the new production licences in early 2027.
The annual awards in predefined areas are the shelf's steady licensing rhythm, opening mature acreage in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea where infrastructure already exists. APA 2026 was announced by the Ministry of Energy in May, on the same 1 September deadline, with its awards also expected in the first quarter of 2027: two rounds will land within weeks of each other.
12 October 2026 Companies
Vår Energi trims full-year guidance after a summer of interruptions
Vår Energi produced an average of 369,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the third quarter of 2026, down 2 percent on the second quarter and level with the same quarter of 2025, the company said in its trading update of 12 October. Production for the year to date stands at 383,000 barrels per day, against 311,000 a year earlier.
The company now expects full-year production of around 390,000 barrels per day, at the bottom of its original 390,000 to 410,000 guidance. It attributes the trim to operational problems at Johan Castberg and the Jotun FPSO in July and to production irregularities in the Åsgard area, adding that both fields have run at expected levels since early August and that none of the main impacts were reservoir related.
Vår Energi sold 34.8 million barrels of oil equivalent in the quarter at a volume-weighted realised price of 103 dollars per barrel of oil equivalent, with crude at a 6 dollar premium to dated Brent and realised gas at 108 dollars per barrel of oil equivalent. Its third-quarter report followed on 21 October.