Major blow to fossil fuel industry

Sovereign wealth fund plans to dump stakes in oil & gas companies

Photo: Wikimedia

The Local

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is scaling back plans to dump stakes in oil and gas companies, the government has revealed.

Originally, the fund—which manages more than $1 trillion in assets—had envisaged pulling out of 134 companies involved in oil and gas exploration and production. 

Norway is the biggest oil and gas producer in Western Europe, and the plans were seen as a major blow to the fossil fuel industry and were welcomed by the environmental lobby.

But Oslo has now opted for a much more modest pullout and would sell stakes in 95 companies involved in the so-called upstream activities of exploration and production.

Downstream activities, such as refining and marketing, and “integrated companies” involved in downstream and upstream activities, would remain unaffected, the finance ministry said in a statement.

This article was originally published on The Local.

This article originally appeared in the October 18, 2019, issue of The Norwegian American.