April production from Norway down from March by 2 percent

May 19 (UPI) -- Preliminary figures for Norway show total production of oil and natural gas was down about 2 percent compared with March levels, but up year-on-year.

The National Petroleum Directorate said preliminary data for April show a daily production of 1.7 million barrels of oil, 377,000 barrels of natural gas liquids and 31,000 barrels of an ultra-light form of oil called condensate. The preliminary data for April is 2 percent below March figures and, for oil, was lower by about 30,000 barrels per day.

Apart from Russia, Norway is one of the largest oil and gas producers in the region and the country sends nearly everything it produces offshore to the export market.

The report on monthly declines comes about a week after the NPD reported efforts by Spanish energy company Repsol to find new reserves near the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea came up empty. Aasta Hansteen was characterized by Statoil, the controlling company, as one of the main projects in its portfolio, though progress has been slow.

The NPD offered no indication for lower field production from April other than to say most of the declines came from the North Sea. Based on its preliminary expectations, however, production so far this year was at least 2 percent higher than expected.

"The oil production is about 4.2 percent above the oil production in April last year and is about 4.2 percent above the NPD's prognosis for April 2017," the agency stated.

Statistics Norway, the government's record-keeping division, said the value of crude oil exports in April was $2.2 billion, an increase of 30 percent year-over-year.