Norway Is Walking Away From Billions of Barrels of 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.
Well why not grant your children and grand children some of the oil wealth, leave them a few crumbs. Why pump it out all now? They have already enough oil money in the pocket, who needs more? But then with the human race it is never enough…
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is modeled on the Alaska Permanent Fund.
But I wonder, does Norway send an annual dividend check to every man, woman and child in Norway like Alaska does? Or would that be too socialist for Norway.
Imagine how bold you have to be to let the people, instead of the politicians, have the personal freedom to spend some of their own money.
I myself am not going to offer any opinion in the slightest since this is concerning Norway and the Norwegian people who I have ZERO vested interest in. They are free to drill or not drill as they desire and I for one have NO standing in their decision and thus any comment I were to make would be disrespectful to the interests of any Norwegians here in this forum.
see how simple this is Ombugge…it’s so easy you can do it too!
Not me. I’m a big thinker, and I’m an American. Therefore, I morally cannot deprive the Norwegians from the benefits of my ideas.
No, every Norwegians do NOT receive a cheque every year, (I don’t even know if cheques are still used in Norway) nor are the politicians allowed to spend the money on their behalf.
Only 3% of the RETURN on the fund per year can be spent on anything in Norway. It is the piggy bank for coming generations, if and when needed, for whatever reason.
Don’t let your paranoia about me hold you back. Let us hear you honest opinion, not some cocked up statement to “get back at me”.
Actually it is not yet even about DRILLING in the Lofoten/Vesteraalen/Senja (LOVESA) offshore area, only whether to even make a risk assessment for doing so.
There have been some preliminary survey done, but no comprehensive seismic survey to confirm the wild estimate of 1-3 billion bbls. of oil and gas in place.
This is a very important spawning.area for cod, herring and other commercially important fish species, hence the resistance against anything that could cause pollution, incl. noise pollution from seismic survey activities.
Paranoid? of YOU! I know Norwegians are known for having square heads made of dense wood but yours has got to be one solid block of lignum vitae (that’s Ironwood boy)
and why should I even have one? I know I wouldn’t get any work out of it if they did go ahead with the exploration so what difference does it make to me? In the Alaskan Arctic on the otherhand, I had a dog in the fight so lambasted Shell mercilessly until they couldn’t take any more of my criticism and threw in the towel wimpering “mamma”
nothing cocked up…you are getting a spanking from me. nothing more and nothing less
I suggest you learn to take it and like it…pest
That’s about the worst way possible to use the proceeds from oil. If people need more money they can work more. The oil money needs to be invested in the future.
3 of 11 post in the tread are by you, are you sure you don’t have a opinion to share?
only that certain members of this forum should defer from commenting on maritime matters in nations they are not a citizen of
Grow up.
There is no reason what so ever for you not to get a job in the Norwegian offshore (or onshore) industry.
Of coarse you would have to apply and to meet the need of some employer.
You would also need to comply with whatever rules and regulations apply, but nothing is impossible.
Lots of foreigners are employed in Norway, incl. some Americans.
What is holding you back??
no reason at all…if fact I am sure Norway makes is easier to get a work visa that the US does for a foreigner to be employed in the US offshore industry.
NOT!
It’s time for you two to stop bickering and meet in a boxing ring in a neutral country. I’d pay up to 50 dollars for a live stream.
You nailed it. The current strategy of extracting all the oil, selling it into a rising market and giving the money to a bunch of bankers for “safekeeping”, is more than a bit stupid. Why not just leave a bit of it in the ground under the reasonable assumption that it will keep increasing in price?
This move is being driven by popular opinion, chiefly by a bunch of youth parties on the far left of the political spectrum, who think that this will save the climate from a billion South East Asians who plan on buying cars. Or that we’re bound to have an accident and pollute the shoreline. I’m not even sure they quite know what they think, except that oil is bad, and we don’t want no stinkin’ risk assessment, no sirree!
This is a prime example of the right thing being done for the wrong reasons. I do hope we’re not walking away from it as much as we’re leaving it there to stew while retaining the military strength and diplomatic connections necessary to defend it when it becomes a truly precious resource.
As for anyone with an opinion on letting these komsomolets and their ilk dictate policy, don’t be shy, especially not if you disagree with me!
Only if I get to use my pointy stick in the bout! HELL, I’d even pay $50 for that.
We have a similar situation in this country but with gas not oil. In 1959 enormous gas fields were discovered in the north eastern part of the country. The last 40 years about 60 to 80 billion m3 per year has been pumped out. All that wealth for the major part has been squandered by the several socialist but also non socialist governments.
The only good thing that came out was the Delta Project to protect us from the sea. This because of the 1953 flood in which almost 2000 people were killed. The rest of the money has evaporated, disappeared mostly spent on welfare projects and large scale social benefits. No money set aside in a fund like the Norwegians cleverly did.
There is still a reserve of 1230 billion m3 but they are going to stop pumping as the land of the entire region there is sinking rapidly. Houses collapse or must be reinforced also due to smaller and larger earth quakes. Even force 5 earth quakes can be expected. Already long ago this was predicted but they paid no heed, were deaf and mute. blinded by the pure lust for more and more money. Screw the people of that region, as simple as that. Now they are delaying and withholding damage payments. And the house owners will never be able to sell there houses if they wanted to get out of this war zone. Literally trapped…
Major reason we do things differently in Norway. Why make the mistakes yourself when we have good neighbors who can do it for us?
