Norway Approves Polish E&P Purchases
Norway's upstream regulator NPD has approved PGNiG's purchases of licences covering the Kvitebjorn and Valemon gas fields in the North Sea, the Polish state company said January 5. The new acquisitions, from Anglo-Dutch major Shell which were announced in September, will contribute to a substantial increase in the PGNiG Group’s gas production volume on the Norwegian Continental Shelf from this year. The deals include infrastructure needed to transport the gas.
PGNiG president Pawel Majewski said: "As the approved acquisitions involve already producing fields, they will immediately translate into a significant rise of our gas output from Norwegian assets. We expect that in 2021 the volume of gas produced by PGNiG Upstream Norway will reach 0.9bn m³, almost double the level recorded in 2020.”
According to estimates, in 2023–2028 the two fields will deliver about 0.2bn m³/yr to PGNiG Upstream Norway, which will be transported to Poland through the Baltic Pipe.
PGNiG Upstream Norway is already producing crude oil and natural gas from nine fields: Skarv, Morvin, Vale, Vilje, Gina Krog, Skogul and AErfugl, Kvitebjørn and Valemon, while development and assessment work is under way on five more deposits: Duva, Tommeliten Alpha, King Lear, Aerfugl Outer and Shrek.
The acquisitions on the Norwegian Continental Shelf over the past four years have increased PGNiG’s oil and gas reserves from about 80mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) to 208mn boe and they form a part of its strategy to avoid buying any Russian gas directly from Russian exporter Gazprom. The bigger part of its strategy however is LNG, which it is buying from the US and Qatar.