Lofoten hot spot of the North

The Reine fjord in Lofoten.

The fight for opening Lofoten in northern Norway for petroleum activity is intensifying. “It is absurd that the danger of minimal losses for the fishing industry are more important than the several billion EUR of possible incomes from oil and gas production in Lofoten,” says Norwegian economist Rögnvaldur Hannisson at NHH (Norges Handelshøyskole) to Barents Observer.

The number of new oil and gas field discoveries on the Norwegian continental shelf is decreasing rapidly. At the same time the oil industry is dependent on new discoveries in order to keep up productivity. The areas outside the Lofoten archipelago in northern Norway are some of the oil industry’s most attractive areas for exploration drillings. However, so far, this area has been protected from such activity because of its vulnerability and importance for the fishing stocks.

On Norwegian hands

Head of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) Finn Bergesen is critical to the lack of action in the north. He calls the petroleum development in northern Norway for Norway’s “fourth industrial age in the nation’s modern history”.

“All premises are present this time. We have the competence, we have the capital and we have the technology. For the first time it is all on Norwegian hands,” Mr. Bergesen underlines to Dagens Næringsliv.

To read the full story on Barents Observer, click here.