Friday, February 28, 2014

"Norway's Oil Fund To Debate Fossil Fuel Investments

It's all just theater until they shut down the Statfjord and Ecofisk oil fields.
Prop bet anyone?
From the Financial Times:
Norway is to debate whether the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund should stop investing in oil, gas and coal companies.
The two governing centre-right parties and two of their allies have agreed to set up an expert group to look into Norway’s $840bn oil fund’s investments in fossil fuels.

Oil and gas companies represent 8.4 per cent of the oil fund’s equity investments, amounting to about $44bn, according to its annual report. Three of its top 10 holdings as of December 31 were in oil companies Royal Dutch Shell, BG Group, and BP.

Norway’s oil fund is one of the world’s most closely-watched investors as it owns 1.3 per cent on average of every listed company. Its biggest holdings at the end of last year were Nestlé, Royal Dutch Shell, Novartis, HSBC and Vodafone. The rest of its 10 largest holdings were Roche, BlackRock, BG, Apple and BP.

The debate over fossil fuel investments started when the opposition Labour party proposed last autumn that the oil fund exit all its coal investments, despite the fact that Norway runs several coal mines....MUCH MORE