‘Stabbed in the back’ – Norwegian workers lash out against oil shame

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

‘Stabbed in the back’ – Norwegian workers lash out against oil shame

 

 

Ole Lie, a drilling supervisor who’s worked for Norway’s oil giant Equinor since the 1990s, is feeling unloved as many are starting to turn their backs on an industry that’s made the Nordic country one of the richest on Earth.

“I feel stabbed in the back,” said Lie, 54, who works on the Gullfaks C platform in the North Sea. “Politicians are very fond of re-distributing the money we make, but not of providing the support needed to keep the industry alive.”

Western Europe’s biggest petroleum producer has a complicated relationship with oil amid growing concern over its impact on the global climate. Oil was discovered in the North Sea in the 1960s and has made Norwegians rich, but that fairy tale is now losing sway as a growing number of politicians and environmental groups are calling for a shut down of production with as much half of the estimated resources still in the ground.

‘Proud Oil Worker’

As neighbors in Sweden are grappling with “flying shame” from the pollution air travel causes, offshore workers across the fjord-edged nation are complaining about “oil shame.” They are now fighting back against what they perceive as a new stigma on their profession and a disregard for the industry’s economic contributions. Many have fitted their Facebook profile picture with a filter proclaiming to be a “Proud Oil Worker” — thousands according to the graphic’s creator.

Oil and gas accounts for about half of the country’s exports and the industry employs almost 200,000 people. This year, the government expects to get $26 billion from taxes, stakes in fields and dividends from Equinor. Almost all of it goes straight into the budget. The rest will top off Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest at about $1.1 trillion. Equinor also just started Norway’s biggest oil field in decades, promising a revival of production and revenue in the coming years.

Yet some polls show that popular support for the industry is eroding. While the biggest political parties remain supporters of the industry, they’re being challenged by other groups and even their own youth wings. The stability of Norway’s oil regulations, one of the high-cost country’s main selling points, could be in jeopardy in coming elections.

The provenance of “oil shame” is unclear. In past months it has been increasingly used in discussions on whether Norway has a moral obligation to phase out production to help fight climate change — or at least stop making money off of it. It follows on the proliferation of “flying shame” in Sweden, a campaign against flying that has hurt air travel.

Oil workers started a push back on social media after Norway’s local elections in September, according to Idar Martin Herland, an electrician at Equinor who created the filter. The election had little immediate impact on the industry, but saw the Green Party gain a record number of votes in the capital, where its top politician, Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, proclaimed on election night that “the time when it was OK to make money by destroying our future will soon be over.”

While she was addressing the powerful oil lobby, many offshore workers took it personally, Herland said.

“They used to say we were paid too much and worked too little,” he said in a phone interview this month. “Now we’re also destroying the world!”

Green Jobs

The Green Party, which has only one lawmaker in parliament but could add seats in the next general election in 2021, argues that it’s difficult to avoid polarisation over an issue as important as climate change. The party wants to phase out oil production over 15 years but sees oil workers as key participants in the transition to a more sustainable energy system with offshore wind power and carbon capture, spokesman Arild Hermstad said.

“The oil workers’ know-how is enormously important,” he said in a phone interview. “Oil workers have nothing to be ashamed of. They aren’t responsible for the big political decisions that must be made to secure a safe transition to green jobs.”

But Lie, the drilling supervisor, said even his own company feels guilty. Equinor changed its name from Statoil last year to reflect an increased focus on renewable energy, even though it will still invest as much as 85% of its capital in crude and gas by 2030.

“When you walk into the reception there, you see pictures of windmills and trees, but not the machinery and rigs the majority of us actually work with,” said Lie. “Even at Equinor, there’s a sort of oil shame.”

Equinor countered that there’s a “good mix” of oil platforms and wind farms in office graphics, and said it’s “proud of both.”

“The name change has been mostly well received, and represents us well by showing that we’re becoming a broad energy company,” spokesman Morten Eek said.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

In seismic shift, Britain orders immediate moratorium on fracking

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-fracking/in-seismic-shift-britain-orders-immediate-moratorium-on-fracking-idUSKBN1XC001

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

2 hours ago, ceo_energemsier said:

‘Stabbed in the back’ – Norwegian workers lash out against oil shame

 

 

Ole Lie, a drilling supervisor who’s worked for Norway’s oil giant Equinor since the 1990s, is feeling unloved as many are starting to turn their backs on an industry that’s made the Nordic country one of the richest on Earth.

“I feel stabbed in the back,” said Lie, 54, who works on the Gullfaks C platform in the North Sea. “Politicians are very fond of re-distributing the money we make, but not of providing the support needed to keep the industry alive.”

Western Europe’s biggest petroleum producer has a complicated relationship with oil amid growing concern over its impact on the global climate. Oil was discovered in the North Sea in the 1960s and has made Norwegians rich, but that fairy tale is now losing sway as a growing number of politicians and environmental groups are calling for a shut down of production with as much half of the estimated resources still in the ground.

‘Proud Oil Worker’

As neighbors in Sweden are grappling with “flying shame” from the pollution air travel causes, offshore workers across the fjord-edged nation are complaining about “oil shame.” They are now fighting back against what they perceive as a new stigma on their profession and a disregard for the industry’s economic contributions. Many have fitted their Facebook profile picture with a filter proclaiming to be a “Proud Oil Worker” — thousands according to the graphic’s creator.

Oil and gas accounts for about half of the country’s exports and the industry employs almost 200,000 people. This year, the government expects to get $26 billion from taxes, stakes in fields and dividends from Equinor. Almost all of it goes straight into the budget. The rest will top off Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest at about $1.1 trillion. Equinor also just started Norway’s biggest oil field in decades, promising a revival of production and revenue in the coming years.

Yet some polls show that popular support for the industry is eroding. While the biggest political parties remain supporters of the industry, they’re being challenged by other groups and even their own youth wings. The stability of Norway’s oil regulations, one of the high-cost country’s main selling points, could be in jeopardy in coming elections.

The provenance of “oil shame” is unclear. In past months it has been increasingly used in discussions on whether Norway has a moral obligation to phase out production to help fight climate change — or at least stop making money off of it. It follows on the proliferation of “flying shame” in Sweden, a campaign against flying that has hurt air travel.

Oil workers started a push back on social media after Norway’s local elections in September, according to Idar Martin Herland, an electrician at Equinor who created the filter. The election had little immediate impact on the industry, but saw the Green Party gain a record number of votes in the capital, where its top politician, Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, proclaimed on election night that “the time when it was OK to make money by destroying our future will soon be over.”

While she was addressing the powerful oil lobby, many offshore workers took it personally, Herland said.

“They used to say we were paid too much and worked too little,” he said in a phone interview this month. “Now we’re also destroying the world!”

Green Jobs

The Green Party, which has only one lawmaker in parliament but could add seats in the next general election in 2021, argues that it’s difficult to avoid polarisation over an issue as important as climate change. The party wants to phase out oil production over 15 years but sees oil workers as key participants in the transition to a more sustainable energy system with offshore wind power and carbon capture, spokesman Arild Hermstad said.

“The oil workers’ know-how is enormously important,” he said in a phone interview. “Oil workers have nothing to be ashamed of. They aren’t responsible for the big political decisions that must be made to secure a safe transition to green jobs.”

But Lie, the drilling supervisor, said even his own company feels guilty. Equinor changed its name from Statoil last year to reflect an increased focus on renewable energy, even though it will still invest as much as 85% of its capital in crude and gas by 2030.

“When you walk into the reception there, you see pictures of windmills and trees, but not the machinery and rigs the majority of us actually work with,” said Lie. “Even at Equinor, there’s a sort of oil shame.”

Equinor countered that there’s a “good mix” of oil platforms and wind farms in office graphics, and said it’s “proud of both.”

“The name change has been mostly well received, and represents us well by showing that we’re becoming a broad energy company,” spokesman Morten Eek said.

So? Let Sweden and Norway go without oil, not my problem, but don’t try to push the Green Agenda on others OR start bitching when you no longer have oil revenues to fund your social programs which you have had since the 60’s.

[PE Scott + 563]

I guess Seeden may be the front runner in oil shaming, but it's becoming common place in the U.S. too.

Even before I had graduated there were friends and family that asked why I didnt learn a profession where I could help people?

Apparently, the discovery, production, refinement, and eventual sale of petroleum products doesn't help anyone. That's the message people are receiving and parroting.

[El Nikko + 2,145]

2 hours ago, PE Scott said:

I guess Seeden may be the front runner in oil shaming, but it's becoming common place in the U.S. too.

Even before I had graduated there were friends and family that asked why I didnt learn a profession where I could help people?

Apparently, the discovery, production, refinement, and eventual sale of petroleum products doesn't help anyone. That's the message people are receiving and parroting.

I've just replied to an old friend from University (who also studied Geology) on his post celebrating the temporary moratorium on fracking in the UK. I don't think these idiologues understand just how precarious our energy supply really is. Year on year energy consuption per person increases as far as I know and if/when electric cars become mainstream that will only get worse, there isn't a chance in hell that renewables will be able to replace all fossil fuels soon, at best it would take 30 years and I doubt it can ever be completely replaced.

If he replies I am going to let him know that our short fall in gas is increasingly likely to be replaced by LNG from US produced wells that have been hydraulicly fractures. I hope he will turn his boiler off this winter and set an example.

[El Nikko + 2,145]

6 hours ago, ceo_energemsier said:

In seismic shift, Britain orders immediate moratorium on fracking

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-fracking/in-seismic-shift-britain-orders-immediate-moratorium-on-fracking-idUSKBN1XC001

That's only temporary but it's rediculous that ignorant people without a clue can dictate energy policy.

You should see just how many seismic monitoring stations surround that site lol

[PE Scott + 563]

5 hours ago, El Nikko said:

That's only temporary but it's rediculous that ignorant people without a clue can dictate energy policy.

You should see just how many seismic monitoring stations surround that site lol

I don't have any studies to cite off hand, but the things I've read have almost all attributed induced seismicity to water injection/disposal wells. Even then, it's only an issue in certain formations with the right set of conditions. 

I'm honestly not very familiar with the area they want to frac in the UK, but I have to assume it isn't anything to much different from formations already developed in the U.S.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

We're in a bad place in history. Any of you who work, or worked, in the fossil fuel industry are contributing to our national security as well as our way of life. And that goes for every democracy--not just the US where I live. Norway has become like a lot of accidentally wealthy people: slightly embarrassed by the fact that the money came from selling, say, liquor rather than a revolutionary cancer drug. Sweden? Well, what can you say about those people. The fact of the matter is that something like 95% of the world uses either an AC during the summer or a heater during the winter. Everyone uses plastics and takes a pill or two. Just about everyone of age used to drive, though I'll admit that's slipping. We need to produce oil and gas in the cleanest manner possible. I'm still opposed to unfettered flaring of methane gas, but I also realize the necessity to do so occasionally. Living in an age when a little girl from Sweden can lecture the rest of us about the immorality of our lives has proven to be a difficult task: it has, on my part, required that I step up my wine consumption, listen to more country music, pray to an antique God, and wish that I had been born in an earlier time.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

God is both ancient and modern. His knowledge is far beyond the supercomputers of mankind. He knows the heart of mankind. 

https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=God+knows+the+heart&version=31

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

There is simply no excuse for ignorance in this day and age...

[El Nikko + 2,145]

11 hours ago, PE Scott said:

I don't have any studies to cite off hand, but the things I've read have almost all attributed induced seismicity to water injection/disposal wells. Even then, it's only an issue in certain formations with the right set of conditions. 

I'm honestly not very familiar with the area they want to frac in the UK, but I have to assume it isn't anything to much different from formations already developed in the U.S.

It's not my area of expertise but I imagine it's similar to the US operations and I would guess if you put a seismic monitoring station next to a US shale pad while during the fracing process you may very well get similar results. Typically the events have been around 1.6 ML on the Richter scale which is virtually nothing, allegedly there was one recorded around 2.6 which is also not much to worry about and only a handful of people would notice it. Also the events last for less than one second.

Saddly this is typical of the paralysis we have in this country when it comes to building anything, recently two major nuclear projects were cancelled because it seems the political will wasn't there and the companies didn't have any faith in the decision makers. One of those is next to where I live, loads of kids were studying engineering expecting a job for life there instead most people have been laid off leaving just the people doing the decomissioning.

Cudrilla (the company doing the fracing operation in Lancashire) have been as transparent as they can and involved the 'local community' and yet they have a constant spotlight shinning on them and have to deal with constant hysterical rumours, it amazes me that anyone would bother investing in the UK energy sector these days but this is the result of the politicization of everything culture.