OSLO, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Norway's Statoil plans tostart producing gas at its new Valemon field in the North Sea bythe end of this year, potentially boosting supplies to Britainvia the Vesterled pipeline, a spokesman said on Thursday.
Norwegian petroleum safety authority said on Thursday it hasgiven a permission for the gas system operator Gassco to use apipeline between Valemon and the Heimdal field's riser platform.
The Vesterled pipeline links Heimdal with the gas terminalat St Fergus on the northeast coast of Scotland, and is used totransport gas from several other Norwegian fields, includingOseberg.
"It's planned late 2014," Statoil's spokesman OerjanHeradstveit said, when asked about plans for starting productionat Valemon, which is estimated to hold about 26 billion cubicmetres of gas.
Statoil has previously said it expected the field's outputto reach 3 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year.
Norway, Europe's second-biggest gas supplier after Russia,exported 102.5 bcm of pipeline gas in 2013.
Gas from the Heimdal riser platform could be also re-routedto continental Europe.
Statoil is field operator for both Heimdal and Valemon.
It holds 53.78 percent stake in Valemon. Other partnersinclude state-owned Petoro with 30 percent, UK's Centrica with 13 percent and Shell with 3.22 percent. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Greg Mahlich)