Energy producing industries increase the total index

Production in oil and gas extraction, manufacturing, mining and quarrying and electricity, gas and steam supply (the total index) showed a seasonally adjusted increase of 1.7 per cent from December 1998 to January 1999. This was related to an increase in oil and gas extraction and in electricity production. In manufacturing, production has remained roughly unchanged.

The seasonally adjusted increase in oil and gas production was 1.9 per cent from December 1998 to January 1999. Altogether, oil and gas extraction in January was about 6 per cent lower than in the same month last year.

Electricity production was 2.6 per cent higher in January 1999 than in December 1998. In manufacturing there has been a slight decline in the last three months compared with the first three months, but if we look at weekly-corrected figures, production in January this year was 2.4 per cent higher than in the corresponding month in 1998.

Production in manufacturing related to the building and completion of oil platforms showed a clear seasonally adjusted decline from December last year to January this year. There has been a decline here in the activity of some important participants compared with the average for 1998. Food, beverages and tobacco had a seasonally adjusted increase of about five per cent during the same period. There has been a clear seasonally adjusted increase here in the production of fish and fish products. Otherwise, there has been a decline in industries such as rubber and plastic products and other non-metallic mineral products.

New Statistics
Index of production, January 1999.
The statistics are published monthly in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. For more information, contact: Oyvind.Naustdal@ssb.no, tel.: +47 21 09 47 35, or Tom.Langer.Andersen@ssb.no, tel.: +47 21 09 47 29.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 10, 1999