Norway: Would another pipeline help?

A new gas pipeline from Norway to continental Europe is under discussion again, less than two years after the government blocked such a plan, writes Martin Quinlan

Support is growing for a new gas-export pipeline. In October 2007, the petroleum and energy minister – who was then just weeks into the job and went on to hold it for only nine months – quashed a plan of StatoilHydro and Gassco for the country's ninth export route to continental Europe or the UK. But Norway's declining oil production has helped to focus public opinion on the value of boosting government revenues from sales of gas – abundant in the country's northern waters. Oil has given the country's 4.6 million population one of the highest qualities of life in the world, with extensive state provision of services, so the decline has been noticed. Although production still averages nearly