Swedish oil company PA Resources AB (PAR.OS) Thursday said its first quarter production fell sharply on the year to 783,000 barrels of oil equivalent after it sold its Norwegian operations, and maintained its 2009 daily output target of 11,000-14,000 barrels a day.

In the first quarter 2008, the company produced 1.09 million BOE, which included output from the Norwegian unit it divested at the end of December 2008.

"This has temporarily reduced the group's total production and sale of oil until the Azurite field in the Republic of Congo starts its production in the summer of 2009," PA Resources said in a statement.

The company noted the quarter's output was also weighed on by a 14 day partial or full outage at the Didon field in Tunisia for the planned installation of a drilling rig at the platform.

A new producer well called D10 was spudded on the Didon field during the period, it said.

Company Web site: http://www.paresources.se

-By Elizabeth Adams, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0) 20 7842 9386; elizabeth.adams@dowjones.com