At the beginning of the 2000s, I was invited on an oiled study trip to Hammerfest. The oil industry was “done” with the North Sea – now they wanted acceptance to be able to extend the party north. The Snøhvit plant in Hammerfest was under construction, but the industry wanted more. Both LOVESE (Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja) and the Barents Sea were on the menu. The study trip probably did not change many points of view, but for my own part I still remember how impressed I was with the oil industry’s enormous self-confidence. There was nothing they thought they could not do. In the debate on oil extraction in vulnerable sea areas in the far north, the oil industry’s attitude was that the Storting had to set strict environmental and emission requirements. Yes, even requirements that might seem almost impossible to meet. Only politicians dropped proposals to ban petroleum activity in vulnerable sea areas. In the debate about electrification of the shelf, it may seem that we have forgotten that the oil industry is the country’s largest and strongest industry – with self-confidence, will and capital to achieve the most incredible things. Instead of asking the industry itself to find out how to remove the emissions from its own production, the Storting has already taken a position on which technology to use: power from land. This has long gone well, but now that the power market in southern Norway has tightened, the inevitable question arises: Is it electrification of oil and gas platforms on which we should use the valuable renewable energy? The alternative to power from land is not to drop electrification of the shelf. If Norway is to come close to the government’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55 per cent by 2030 (compared with 1990), it must at least achieve rapid and large emission cuts from Norwegian oil and gas activity. Ending today’s gas-fired power production is by far the most important measure. The question becomes how. The Labor Party and the Center Party announced in the Hurdal platform that the government will enter into a climate partnership with the business community. An open candidate for such a partnership should be the oil and gas industry, which accounts for a quarter of Norway’s total greenhouse gas emissions. The starting point for such a partnership must be that they (like all other industries) commit themselves to fulfilling their part of the government’s sharpened climate goals. The company must find out for itself how the emission cuts are to take place. Of course, one can not rule out that power from land may be relevant for some projects, but it may not be normal in the future. The industry is forced to come up with alternatives – be it offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, various hybrid technologies or something completely different. The cost is natural that oil companies, which today are flooded with money due to the war in Ukraine, and which during the pandemic secured an extraordinary gold-edged tax agreement with the state, must pray for themselves. Those who believe the oil and gas companies are not able to cough up alternative electrification strategies for power from land, underestimate the industry. Because there is one thing 50 years of oil production on the Norwegian shelf has shown, and that is that this industry – above all others – is able to innovate out of most problems. From a historical perspective, the challenge of obtaining an emission-free power supply offshore within eight years should be fully manageable.
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Oil companies can find the cut themselves – Expression
