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Weekly Bulletin issue no. 3, 1997

Foreign trade in goods, December 1996. Preliminary figures:

Value of exports exceeded NOK 300 billion in 1996

Norway exported a record NOK 309 billion worth of goods in 1996. This is the first time the annual value of exports, up 21 per cent over 1995, has exceeded NOK 300 billion. Not since 1989 have exports grown by a higher annual percentage rate.
Crude oil and natural gas, up 38 per cent from 1995, accounted for half of the value of exports. Norway imported NOK 215 billion worth of goods in 1996, an increase of 6.2 per cent. The trade surplus thus came to NOK 95 billion, the highest ever. In 1995 the surplus was NOK 54 billion.

Higher crude oil prices

Behind the higher export value of oil and gas are both higher crude oil prices and increased oil and gas production resulting from the coming on stream of the Troll and Heidrun fields. In 1996, Norway exported just over one billion barrels of crude oil, a volume increase of 12 per cent from the year before. The preliminary average oil prices for 1996 is NOK 132 per barrel, against an average price for 1995 of NOK 106 per barrel. In 1996, Norway exported 38 billion cubic metres of gas, 37 per cent more than in 1995.

Traditional goods

Exports of traditional goods totalled NOK 154 billion in 1996, up eight per cent from the year before. The trade surplus in traditional goods shows, however, a deficit of NOK 61 billion, up NOK 1 billion from 1995.

Exports of fish totalled NOK 21.4 billion in 1996, an increase of 11 per cent from the year before. Exports of metals, except for iron and steel, fell by 3.7 per cent and accounted for NOK 20.6 billion. Fish has taken over the position of metals as Norway's most important traditional export commodity.

New Statistics

Foreign trade in goods, December 1996. Preliminary figures.
Statistics are published every month in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and the Monthly Bulletin of External Trade. The figures are available from Customer Services, Foreign Trade, tel. +47 21 09 47 52/53. More information: Lars A. Lunde, tel. +47 21 09 47 08, e-mail: lal@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 3, 1997