Norway's Oil Investment Drop Grows

The anticipated drop in Norwegian oil and gas investments will be bigger in 2015 than earlier forecast as the low oil price weighs on spending plans, the oil minister said on Tuesday.

"The industry's profitability is under pressure, which limits investments. The drop in investments in 2015 looks like it will be bigger than we had anticipated last autumn," Lien told an energy conference. "I think we must expect some companies to cut further."

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate last week said it expected oil and gas investments to fall by 15 percent this year and 23 percent between 2014 and 2017.

Reporting by Joachim Dagenborg and Stine Jacobsen