Norway exported gas worth 13 billion euros in July, a new record
New record for Norway. Thanks to the surge in natural gas prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Scandinavian country has more than quadrupled its exports in a year, according to official statistics released on Monday. In July alone, 128.4 billion crowns of gas or more than 13 billion euros were sold, breaking the record from March.
Norway is exploiting the diplomatic crisis surrounding Nord Stream 1
As the largest exporter of hydrocarbons in Western Europe, Norway is benefiting from the Ukraine conflict. “The shutdown and slowdown of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which carries gas from Russia to Europe, helped push gas prices to a record high in July“Commented Jan Olav Rørhus of the Norwegian Statistical Institute in a press release. Although they were due to resume in July, gas supplies from Russia to western Europe through Nord Stream 1 not only accounted for 20% of the infrastructure’s capacity, which could normally be up to 167 million Transport cubic meters of gas per day.
In question is a diplomatic crisis over a turbine that was sent to a Siemens Energy site in Canada for repairs. Russian giant Gazprom claims it can’t get it back, so it can’t operate Nord Stream 1 as usual. Berlin denies these claims and accuses Moscow of seeking another excuse to delay the return of that turbine and further reduce its gas supplies.
Europeans are very dependent on the gas pipeline, which, for example, carried 55% of Germany’s total imports before the Ukraine conflict intensified in February. To make up for this deficiency, they turn to Norway in particular.
15.6 billion trade surplus for Norway
Gas sales sent Norway’s trade surplus skyrocketing to 153.2 billion kronor (EUR 15.6 billion) in July, breaking the previous record of 138.1 billion kronor (EUR 14 billion) set in March, figures released by the SSB show.
In addition to gas, Norway is also benefiting from rising oil sales, but also from electricity, metals and fish. The Scandinavian country is producing at full capacity to meet some of the needs of European countries looking to break their energy dependency on Russia. Before the conflict, Norway supplied between 20-25% of the gas needs of the European Union and the United Kingdom versus Russia’s between 45-50%.
