NCS Live: a live map of the Norwegian Continental Shelf

NCS Live is a free, real-time map of the Norwegian Continental Shelf. It draws every in-service oil and gas installation, subsea structure, pipeline and field outline over bathymetric seabed relief, with live vessel traffic, offshore helicopter flights, power-supply status and estimated pipeline flows.

What the map shows

Around 160 surface installations — fixed platforms, floaters, semi-submersibles, loading buoys, wind turbines and onshore terminals — and around 525 subsea structures, each with its type, operator, water depth, field and start-up date. The offshore pipeline network is drawn by medium: gas, oil, condensate and CO2 injection. Field outlines carry licence partners with their exact shares and monthly production per field.

Optional layers add seismic survey activity by acquisition type, cold-water Lophelia coral reefs and the areas closed to bottom-towed fishing gear to protect them, wind and wave forecasts, and a value-creation counter that prices each field's output at Norway's realized export prices.

Where the data comes from

Installations, pipelines, fields and production are from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (Sokkeldirektoratet) FactPages, published under the NLOD licence. Vessel positions are AIS from BarentsWatch and Kystverket. Helicopter movements come from Avinor flight data. Coral observations are from Havforskningsinstituttet and MAREANO, protection areas from Fiskeridirektoratet, and export prices from Statistics Norway. Weather is a forecast from Open-Meteo. Basemap tiles are © OpenStreetMap contributors and © CARTO.

What is estimated rather than measured

Pipeline thickness and flow animations are estimates derived from monthly production accumulated through the network, not metered throughput, and thickness is not pipe diameter. Helicopter positions are dead-reckoned between departure and arrival. Cable routes are schematic. Wind and wave figures are forecasts for the current hour, not observations. Nothing here is for navigation or operational use.

Questions and answers

What is the Norwegian Continental Shelf?
The Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) is the seabed area where Norway holds sovereign rights over petroleum resources, covering the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. It holds roughly 90 producing fields, and its output is the largest single source of Norway's export income.
What does NCS Live show?
Every in-service surface installation and subsea structure on the shelf, the offshore pipeline network, field outlines and seabed relief, with live vessel traffic and offshore helicopter flights on top of them. Optional layers add seismic survey activity, cold-water coral, wind and wave forecasts, and a counter for the value each field is producing today.
Where does the data come from?
Infrastructure, fields and production come from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (Sokkeldirektoratet) FactPages under the NLOD licence. Vessel positions are AIS from BarentsWatch and Kystverket. Helicopter movements are derived from Avinor flight data. Coral observations come from the Institute of Marine Research and MAREANO, and export prices from Statistics Norway (SSB).
Is the vessel traffic real time?
Yes. Tankers and offshore support vessels are drawn from live AIS positions and refreshed continuously, with speed, course and self-reported destination. Helicopter positions are dead-reckoned estimates between known departures and arrivals, not surveillance.
Are the pipeline flows measured?
No. Pipeline thickness and the travelling flow animation are estimates, derived by accumulating monthly field production through the pipeline network. They are not metered throughput, and thickness is not pipe diameter.
Can I see how the shelf was built out?
Yes. The time machine replays the shelf from 1971, the year Ekofisk started producing, to today. Installations and pipelines appear in the year they entered service, with total production and the number of producing fields for each year.
Is NCS Live free to use?
Yes, free and with no account. It is a public visualisation of open data, built and designed by Smpl and Melvær&Co in Norway.

Every producing field has its own page: all fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. More about the map, its sources and its limits: about NCS Live. På norsk: kart over norsk kontinentalsokkel. Built and designed by Smpl and Melvær&Co. A machine-readable summary of everything on the map, its sources and its caveats is at llms.txt.