BG Group said Wednesday it started production from the Knarr field in the North Sea, a prospect with an estimated 80 million barrels of oil equivalent.

The company said it started production at the field off the coast of Norway using a floating production, storage and offloading vessel that has a production capacity of 63,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and a storage capacity of 800,000 barrels.

The Knarr field is expected to remain in production for at least 10 years.

"New exploration drilling in the license area is ongoing, in order to help extend the production life further," the company said in a statement.

BG's announcement follows confirmation from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the nation's energy regulator, of a natural gas discovery made by Statoil in a part of the Norwegian Sea not known previously to contain reserves.

"Preliminary calculations of the size of the discovery are between 176 billion and 317 billion standard cubic feet of recoverable gas," the NPD said in a statement.

NPD said total production for the first two months of 2015 from Norwegian territory was 242 million barrels of oil equivalent, most of which was in the form of natural gas. That was about 2.7 percent higher than during the same period in 2014.

Norway is one of the regional leaders in terms of oil and gas production, serving as a main supplier to its European neighbors. The government in January offered 57 new sites up for auction in its regional waters. Licenses will be awarded next year.