(Bloomberg) – Norway must allocate more land for oil and gas production and expand the country’s burgeoning renewable energy sector to protect domestic suppliers of parts and services, the head of the country’s second-largest oil and gas company said.
Karl Johnny Hersvik (Photographer: Fredrik Bjerknes/Bloomberg)
“We need as much land as possible for cultivation. And whatever is hindered by environmental impact assessments, let’s do them and bring the land to market,” said Karl Johnny Hersvik, CEO of Aker BP ASA, in an interview on Monday on the sidelines of the ONS Energy Conference in Stavanger.
“And then I would like to see more efforts for renewable energy on a large scale. Not for the oil and gas industry, but because the supply industry – in which we have been investing for so long – really needs it.”
In 2022, Norway’s two largest oil companies, Aker BP and Equinor ASA, decided to push ahead with plans to spend about 200 billion kroner ($19 billion) developing a series of fields in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. The investment plans were boosted by temporary Covid-era tax rules designed to boost oil investment during the pandemic.
While the package has created jobs and activity at a time when suppliers are facing empty order books, the outlook for the period after 2026 is unclear, Hersvik said. The volume of orders from renewable energy sources in Norway is still too small to offset the sharp decline in oil and gas production, he said.
