Norway Expects Delayed Start at Johan Sverdrup

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate continues to expect output at the Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea, Norway's most important industrial project, to begin later than Statoil (STO) expects it to, the head of the agency said on Thursday.

"We have a small disagreement with the operator on this because we have pushed it a little further in time than what the development plan says," Bente Nyland told Reuters.

"This is because it is such a complex development that we believe it will be a little delayed compared to what the operator expects. But this is not worrisome."

"We think Sverdrup will come into production around 2020, for phase 1, while phase 2 will start around 2022," she said.

In April the NPD said it expected Sverdrup to begin production in mid-2020. Statoil has said it expects phase 1 to start in the fourth quarter of 2019 and phase 2 to start in 2022.

Reporting by Stine Jacobsen