The Board, representing the three partners, Russia's Gazprom, Italy's Total and Norwegian Statoil, made their decision at a meeting in Switzerland on Friday, based on what they see as a changing market outlook for natural gas, and LNG in particular.

The decision to start the development of the field has also been postponed earlier, and the date had been set for the first quarter of 2010. The new date has been set for March 2011, according to Aftenposten.

Gazprom had earlier announced that production at Stockman would start in 2013, regarded by many observers as too optimistic.

(NRK/Aftenposten)

Rolleiv Solholm