Mayo Sinn Féin Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Norway takes major stake holding in Shell

Published: 10 December, 2009

Sinn Fein County Councilor Gerry Murray has claimed that the Norwegian government has taken a major shareholding in Shell. The stake holding is believed to be in excess of 2 billion euro and is funded from Norway's sovereign wealth fund. The investment firmly establishes the Norwegian government as the main player in the corrib gas project thus ensuring that the Norwegian people and their Government will be the main beneficiaries of all oil and gas finds in the corrib field.

In a statement Cllr Murray said. "The fund, in which Norway saves its oil and gas revenues from the North Sea has become so large that it now owns more than 1% of the world's shares. It is Europe's biggest equity investor and speaks for 1.7% of all listed European companies."

"The fund is further testimony to what can be achieved when there is astute and prudent management of a nation's oil and gas resources. As the Irish economy slides further into recession, the Norwegian economy is experiencing an unprecedented boom as recent valuations put its sovereign wealth fund well in excess of 300 billion euro. The fund is now the World's second largest sovereign wealth fund outside the Middle East."

"In recent times the Norwegian government had been promoting the ethical nature of its sovereign fund. It made great play of the fact that it has pledged $1 billion to stop the deforestation of the Amazon and last September, the fund sold its shares in Israeli group Elbit as it provided a surveillance system for the separation wall in the West Bank. In 2006 the fund disinvested from US retail giant Wall Mart because of its labor policies, such as blocking employees' attempts to form unions or pressurizing staff to work overtime without compensation, as it constituted an infringement of human rights."

"In that context the Norwegian government might review its own involvement in the corrib field as it is quite clearly based on a corrupt deal which was negotiated in the 1990s. The time has come for the Irish government to engage with their Norwegian counterparts in an attempt to renegotiate the flawed licenses that were issued in those years. As a nation we have arrived at a situation where we are nationalizing the debt via Nama and privatizing the wealth by giving away our oil and gas. A major renegotiation of all oil and gas licenses issued by successive governments since 1990 would quite simply reverse Ireland's economic decline and put us on the road to recovery. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is a painful reminder of how things could have been if our legislators had acted in the interests of the common good as opposed to being the servant boys of a small tiny privileged elite. But the good news is, it's not too late, there is no legal or constitutional impediment that prevents the Irish government from renegotiating all of those gas and oil licenses in the interest of the Irish people."