More oil coming from Norway, possibly sooner than expected

Wintershall said its flagship Maria field offshore Norway is progressing steadily toward development by utilizing existing infrastructure to conserve capital. Drilling of the six wells slated initially for a field representing about $1.8 billion in investments started in March.

Mario Mehren, the CEO of the German energy company, said Tuesday that if development trends continue, the start of production could come as early as the first half of next year.

"With the drilling of the reservoir, we will be passing another critical milestone that moves us a step closer to first oil," he said in a statement.

Norway is a primary oil and natural gas supplier to the European market, apart from Russia. Wintershall estimates the Maria field holds about 180 million barrels of oil equivalent and most of that exists as oil.

Wintershall's trend with Maria follows a warning last week from the International Energy Agency that markets outside North America may be slowing down. The IEA said that, globally, oil discoveries hit a record low last year as spending declined in response to historically low crude oil prices. Last year posted 2.4 billion barrels of new discoveries, against a 15-year average of 9 billion barrels.

Norway reported preliminary production of 1.73 million barrels of oil, 380,000 barrels of natural gas liquids and 31,000 barrels of condensate, an ultra-light form of oil, per day in March. Oil production in particular was 8 percent higher than last year and about 4 percent higher than the government expected.

Wintershall's production reached a "historic level" of 165 million barrels of oil equivalent per day last year. Over the last 10 years, it's increased its oil and gas production by around 50 percent and doubled its commercially recoverable oil and gas reserves to 1.62 billion barrels of oil equivalent.