Norway has suspended plans to start giving licences for deep-sea mining next year that had faced opposition from environment groups and international institutions, a party allied with the centre-left government said on Sunday. Norway, Western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer, had planned to become one of the world’s first countries to start handing out rights to tens of thousands of square kilometres (miles) of seabed. But the small Socialist Left Party said it had blocked the move in return for supporting the minority government’s 2025 budget. “There will be no announcement of exploration rights for deep-sea mining in 2024 or 2025,” the party said in a statement. The energy ministry did not immediately comment on the move. But Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoer said it was only a postponement. “We should be able to accept that,” he told TV2 television. Parliament gave approval in January for allowing mining rights for some 280,000 square kilometers (108,000 square miles) of seabed.