SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Western Europe’s biggest petroleum producer is falling out of love with oil.
To the dismay of the nation’s powerful oil industry and its worker unions, the opposition Labor Party over the weekend decided to withdraw its support for oil exploration offshore the sensitive Lofoten islands in Norway’s Arctic, creating a solid majority in parliament to keep the area off limits for drilling.
The dramatic shift by Norway’s biggest party is a significant blow to the support the oil industry has enjoyed, and could signal that the Scandinavian nation is coming closer to the end of an era that made it one of the world’s most affluent.
How will Norway pay for its social safety network without oil revenues?
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Norway Is Walking Away from Billions of Barrels of Oil
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 120 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
1
(2)
1
(2)
Q: How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job?
A: Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:54AM (3 children)
WMD-carrying terrorists taking over Norway, liberation by the Free World needed.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:16PM (2 children)
Why do people keep talking about terrorists taking over Norway?
(Score: 3, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:56PM (1 child)
Read news!!! foxnews.com/opinion/the-multiculturalism-myth-world-leaders-ignore-islams-refusal-to-assimilate [foxnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:28PM
That is disturbing
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:54AM
Well that's not a condescending summary at all.
I think you'll think that Norway are one of the most affluent nations in the world because they don't throw money away on wars, invest in their people, and have a vast range of assets beyond just oil, as well as being the masters of forward-thinking.
And I'm not even Norwegian, nor have any connection to Norway.
The way the summary speaks, you'd think that they just voluntarily slit their own throat for no reason. At worst, they've made a very moral decision over profit, and done so knowingly and willingly. Unlike, say, fecking Brexit.
Oil might be 20% of their GDP, but "Today, Norway ranks as the second-wealthiest country in the world in monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation".
Try reporting the story as-is, without basis and anti-socialist sentiment next time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DavePolaschek on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:24PM
Do we take Bloomberg seriously? They still haven't retracted [appleinsider.com] the iCloud Spy Chip [bloomberg.com] story, have they?
Maybe Oil-wealthy Norway faces a political crossroads as climate concerns grow [arstechnica.com] instead?
(Score: 4, Informative) by dw861 on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:38AM
Did I read this correctly?
Simple. It is called the Statens pensjonsfond Utland, SPU.
https://www.nbim.no/ [www.nbim.no]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway [wikipedia.org]
Over the years, by law a percentage of Oil revenues were held in reserve and invested, and that core capital was never to be touched. Think about that. By 2019 the fund now has over $1 trillion dollars of assets.
At this point the Norwegian govt owns 1.4% of every single publicly traded company on the planet. They also own real estate and other fixed assets. This has spread risk away from being continually dependent on oil.
They don't need to drill for oil anymore. At this point they can forget about fossil fuels. The fund dividends can pay for all those expensive social programs. As of last year, they had almost $200k for every single citizen.
A parallel story is that the fund is now divesting of pure fossil fuel exploration and extraction companies.