(April 15): Norway’s crude exports surged to a record by value last month due to the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, helping to raise the country’s trade surplus to the highest level in more than three years.
The value of crude oil exports jumped 68% in March from a year earlier to 57.4 billion kroner on foreign sales of 56.6 million barrels, Statistics Norway said in a statement Wednesday.
“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused a significant supply shock in the oil market, which contributed to the high oil prices in March, and thus the highest export value ever,” said Jan Olav Rorhus, a senior adviser with the statistics agency.
The largest energy exporter in Western Europe was also helped by natural gas prices climbing as the Iran war hit supplies. The combined oil and gas revenue gain lifted Norway’s trade surplus to 97.5 billion kroner, its highest since January 2023, while both exports and the surplus still remain clearly below their peaks in 2022 over Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
The data comes as US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said in a post on his Truth Social platform that “Europe is desperate for Energy” and “Norway sells its North Sea Oil to the UK at double the price. They are making a fortune”.
See also: Japan may extend US$10 bil to Southeast Asia to help buy oil
Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, a former chief of the Nato defence alliance, last month rejected claims that his country is profiting from the war in the Middle East. The conflict’s impact on equity markets is more important for the Norwegians via their US$2.2 trillion sovereign wealth fund than the lift to energy prices, he argued.
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