Equinor to step up gas production to meet demand in Europe

Norway’s Equinor and its partners, along with the Norwegian authorities, said on Wednesday that they will take steps to meet the gas demand in Europe.

“Our focus is to maintain safe and efficient operations on our facilities, remaining a reliable supplier of energy to the markets in Europe in a highly challenging situation. In close dialogue with the authorities and our partners we are now taking steps to maintain the high production level from the winter,” Kjetil Hove, executive vice president, Exploration & Production Equinor, said in a statement.

"1.4 billion cubic metres of gas meet the gas demand of around 1.4 million European homes during a year," the company said in a statement.

According to the company, these adjusted production permits from the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy will allow the Osberg field to increase its gas exports by around one billion cubic metres in the period up to 30 September.

Gas exports from the Heidrun field can increase by 0.4 billion cubic meters for the calendar year 2022.

Equinor said that the Troll field, the North Sea's largest source of gas, will be allowed to increase output in case that other fields face outages.