Europe’s increased dependence on Norway’s oil and gas has made the country’s energy installations more at risk of attack, the head of one of the agencies charged with securing them said on Monday.
Norway overtook Russia in 2022 as Europe’s biggest supplier of natural gas as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine upended decades-long energy ties and sent prices soaring.
“I am concerned about dependency, and there is no doubt that Europe has become more dependent on Norwegian gas,” Lars Christian Aamodt, head of the National Security Authority, said in an interview with Reuters.
“As soon as the dependency increases, so will the threat and the risk,” he said.
Mr Aamodt’s agency said European dependency on Norwegian oil and gas could rise further should conflicts in the Middle East disrupt the petroleum market.
In addition, Norwegian oil and gas installations could be hit by “accidents, physical sabotage and destructive cyberattacks”, a separate report from Norwegian authorities said.
Russian surveillance and mapping of Norwegian infrastructure is continuing as “business as usual”, Admiral Nils Andreas Stensoenes, head of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, told Reuters.
