Weekly Bulletin issue no. 47 1996

Natural gas is becoming more important

From January to October this year, Norway exported NOK 124.1 billion worth of crude oil and natural gas. The trade surplus has been high in most of these months and has now reached nearly NOK 75 billion. In October last year, the trade surplus was NOK 44 billion. Total exports in the period amount to NOK 252.5 billion and imports NOK 177.5 billion. Compared to last year, combined exports increased by 19 per cent, while imports rose nearly six per cent. Ships and oil platform are not included.

In October, Norway delivered 90 per cent more natural gas to the Continent than it did during the same month last year. The growth is due to ordinary production of gas from the Troll field beginning 1 October. Gas exports totalled 15.7 billion from January to October. In the future a steadily growing share of Norwegian continental shelf exports will come from natural gas. Crude oil exports are also substantially higher, totalling NOK 108.4 billion in the 10 first months of this year. This is a 35 per cent increase from the comparative period last year. The quantity has increased from 751 million barrels in 1995 to 845 million barrels this year. The price per barrel has risen in the last five months of this year and was NOK 152 in October.

Higher exports of finished goods

Exports of traditional goods were NOK 128.3 billion from January to October. This is NOK 8.9 billion more than in the same period last year. The increase is distributed among many product groups.

New Statistics

Foreign trade in goods, October 1996.
Statistics are published every month in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. Monthly figures including October will be available from Customer Services, Foreign Trade, tel. +47 21 09 47 52/53 on Tuesday, 26 November and will be published in the Monthly Bulletin of External Trade in week 49. More information: Hans Kristian Østereng, tel. +47 21 09 47 13, e-mail: hko@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 47 1996