The subsea segment of the oil and gas industry is the by far the fastest growing industry in the world today. The global turnover is expected to grow by 30% from today towards 2011. This creates opportunites for companies that are not part of this booming oil anmd gas industry today..

Norway has a small LNG terminal located in Tjeldbergodden, with a capacity of only 12,000 tonnes per year (t/y). In 2004, all output from this plant went to Sweden, according to Statistics Norway. On a much larger scale, Statoil plans to construct an LNG export terminal at Melkoya, near Hammerfest.

Two countries, Norway and the Netherlands, account for over three-fourths of these reserves. On the other hand, the United Kingdom is the largest producer. The North Sea region is an important source of natural gas for Europe, second only to Russia in total exports to the European Union (EU). Natural gas production in the region has increased dramatically since the early 1980s, with a 2003 production level of 9.9 Tcf that was 56 percent above the 1980 level.

Norway and the United Kingdom are signifigant oil exporters, though Denmark is also a small net exporter. Because Norway only consumes a relatively small amount of oil each year, the country is able to export the vast majority of its oil production. In 2003, Norway was the third-largest net oil exporter in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia.

The five countries in the North Sea region had 14.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in 2005. Norway contains the bulk of these reserves (57 percent), followed by the UK (30 percent). Total oil production for the North Sea region, including on- and offshore, was 5.9 million barrels per day (bbl/d), down 5.6 percent from peak production in 1999. Norway and the UK are the largest producers, though Denmark is also a net exporter.

Significant North Sea oil and natural gas reserves were discovered in the 1960s. However, the North Sea did not emerge as a key, non-OPEC oil producing area until the 1980s and 1990s, when major projects began coming onstream. Oil and natural gas extraction in the North Sea's inhospitable climate and great depths requires sophisticated offshore technology. Consequently, the region is a relatively high-cost producer, but its political stability and proximity to major European consumer markets have allowed it to play a major role in world oil and natural gas markets.