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Open door to Norwegian continental shelt

OIL: No ethical requirements are made of oil companies wishing to become rich on the Norwegian continental shelf. A raft of organisations are now calling for such requirements to be introduced.

When Norwegian oil money is invested abroad, the Ethical Council to the Oil Fund keeps a close watch. When foreign companies want to invest in Norwegian oil, however, no such ethical requirements are made. The Department of Oil and Energy has confirmed this to Dagsavisen.

At the same time, the oil industry is rife with examples of ethically questionable investments. Norwegian People’s Aid, alongside a host of others calling for ethical guidelines for companies wanting to work in the North Sea, is now demanding that all companies competing for work on the Norwegian continental shelf be vetted for corruption, violations of human rights and war crimes.

“Companies wishing to operate in Norway must be checked to see if they have any violations in their baggage,” says Secretary General to Norwegian People’s Aid, Liv Tørres.

On Friday, Dagsavisen wrote about the controversial Swedish oil company Lundin Petroleum, which is currently making significant increases in its investments on the Norwegian continental shelf. Lundin is set to invest 8.5 billion Norwegian kroner in Norway this year. All this while the company is undergoing an investigation from the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Sweden. The inquiry was launched following allegations of the company’s being involved in breaches of international law during the civil war in Sudan. According to the company’s own reports, profits made from their Sudan operations from 1997 to 2003 have enabled the company to invest in Norway. 

Ethical guidelines

Also on Friday, the environmental foundation, Bellona, send a letter to the Council on Ethics to the Government Pensions Fund Global (the Oil Fund) calling for an inquiry into whether the pension fund’s investments in the controversial company are in keeping with the fund’s own ethical guidelines.

Bellona leader Frederic Hauge thinks it paradoxical that there are ethical guidelines for where Norway invests its oil revenues while companies working in the Norwegian sector are not subject to the same ethical regulations.

“If it turns out that blood money has been invested on the Norwegian continental shelf, then it’s necessary to take a look at the regulations. Is this what we want? This case goes to show that this is an extremely important debate that we have to have,” says Hauge. 

Untenable position

Liv Tørres of Norwegian People’s Aid is also looking for more congruence between the guidelines that regulate investment by the Norwegian Government Pensions Fund and investments on the Norwegian continental shelf.

“If it is the case that companies can be excluded from the pensions fund for ethical reasons while being given an open door to operate in Norway, then we are in an untenable moral position. We cannot be of the opinion that something is unethical in one area and irrelevant in another. There must be consistency between what is ethical to do both abroad and at home,” she says, calling for an explanation from the Norwegian authorities.

The following explanation duly arrived yesterday from the Department of Oil and Energy after three days’ pressing for an answer:

“There are no ethical guidelines or requirements for licensees on the Norwegian continental shelf beyond their obligation to operate in compliance with Norwegian legislation,” reads the statement from Communications Advisor Lise Rist.

One of the parties in the current governing coalition, SV, is also calling for the introduction of such guidelines. The party’s foreign affairs spokesman, Snorre Valen, has previously called for a freeze on further exploration licences for Lundin on the Norwegian continental shelf until the investigation into the company is complete. Valen is now seeking the introduction of rules to make companies accountable for any human rights violations outside Norway.

“Oil is a very dirty business in many parts of the world. Norway thus has an excellent opportunity to make a number of demands and influence the industry outside Norway too,” says Valen to Dagsavisen. 

Must make demands

Fafo-researcher Mark Taylor refers to the 2011 guidelines passed by the UN relating to the responsibility of nation states and businesses to respect human rights. They maintain, among other things, that companies are not only subject to the local laws in the countries in which they operate, but also to the laws of their home country and third countries. Many unstable, poor, war-torn countries have no way of enforcing international laws and regulations themselves.

“The challenge is to get countries to have an active relationship to the guidelines. We must make demands that companies follow international standards and do not evade responsibility when operating in other countries,” says Taylor, who researches in the fields of international law, war economies and human rights.

“Making demands of foreign companies may have an important effect. Not all countries have the same regulations as ourselves. One way of ensuring that business respects human rights is to demand that companies allowed to operate in Norway do not commit breaches of human rights elsewhere. This may have a global effect and help improve conditions in the rest of the world,” he says.

The inquiry into Lundin Petroleum by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Sweden was launched in 2010 and is still ongoing. Therefore the extent to which the company has been involved in illegal activities in Sudan has not yet been clarified. Lundin Petroleum’s media communications manager, Robert Eriksson, writes in an e-mail to Dagsavisen that Lundin has an extensive set of regulations for social responsibility.

“Our code of conduct regulates how our company functions and which values and principles govern Lundin Petroleum. We are very concerned about living up to the highest international standards in these areas,” Eriksson writes.

Oil in the North Sea

Sources: NTB, Dagsavisen, the Directorate of Oil

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