Natural gas production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf posted steep monthly and annual falls during September on the back of a heavy maintenance schedule last month, preliminary data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate showed Tuesday.
Salable gas production -- which includes gas produced for LNG export -- fell 21% month on month and 32% year on year to a preliminary 6.36 Bcm last month, with production hit by maintenance at both the Karsto and Kollsnes gas processing plants as well as several unplanned outages.
September's preliminary figure came in well below the forecast of 8.123 Bcm for last month.
During the first nine months of the year, salable gas production on the NCS came to a preliminary 84.44 Bcm, marginally lower than the 84.62 Bcm produced during the January-September period last year.
NPD forecasts for salable gas production for the remaining three months of the year are all above the 10 Bcm mark with the planned maintenance schedule now completed, set to rise to 10.435 Bcm October, 10.134 Bcm November, and 10.478 Bcm December.
These forecasts put Norway's salable gas production at 31.047 Bcm for the final quarter of the year, which would be down on the 31.889 Bcm seen during Q4 2015.
