Norwegian Pension Fund to Remain Committed to Gas Investments

While companies continue acquisition of 3D data in the Barents Sea, an expert group in charge of assessing the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global’s investments in fossil fuels said that the Fund should stay put, generally confirming its investments in oil and gas companies.   

‘In our view, fossil fuel companies’ energy production, energy use or CO2 emissions cannot per se be said to be contrary to generally accepted ethical norms. We therefore do not recommend an automatic exclusion of all coal and petroleum producers from the Fund’ the expert group wrote on Wednesday.

However, the report speaks about cases in which investments in companies could collide with the intention of the Fund to give its contribution to decrease global warming. Those cases should be then evaluated one by one.  

‘We recommend that a new criterion – “contribution to climate change” – be included in the Guidelines for Observation and Exclusion. This would allow for exclusion of companies on a case-by-case basis where there is an unacceptable risk that the company contributes to or is responsible for acts or omissions that, on an aggregate company level, are severely harmful to the climate. We discuss issues related to the application of such a criterion in the report, but recommend that the interpretation and application of the criterion should be left to the Council on Ethics.’

23RD NORWEGIAN LICENSING ROUND 

In preparation of the 23rd Norwegian licensing round, TGS and Electromagnetic Geoservices announced they step up cooperation in the Barents Sea.

"TGS and EMGS are once again pleased to expand their cooperation in the Barents Sea. As the 23rd Norwegian licensing round approaches, it is imperative for clients to have high quality, integrated EM and seismic data available” commented Stein Ove Isaksen, Senior VP Eastern Hemisphere for TGS.