OSLO, May 28 (Reuters) - Oil and gas companies working inNorway have hiked their 2019 and 2020 investment forecasts asthey add more field development plans, a survey by the country'sstatistics agency (SSB) showed on Tuesday.
Investments for 2019 are now seen at 183.7 billion Norwegiancrowns ($21.11 billion), a four-year high, up from 172.7 billioncrowns seen in February.
"The oil companies' latest estimates for 2019 suggest anincrease of as much as 17% compared with the correspondingfigure for 2018," the agency said in a statement.
"This growth is considerably higher than indicated in theprevious survey, which showed a 7.9% increase," it added.
In 2020, investments are projected to be 172.4 billioncrowns, higher than the 158.5 billion seen three months ago andsubject to potential upward revision in the months to come, theagency said.
Equinor is Norway's largest oil company, competingwith Aker BP, Lundin Petroleum, Total, ConocoPhillips, ENI and Shell, among others.
($1 = 8.7019 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing byMark Potter)
BP (BP.)
