Thread: "Russophobia" and "Russophilia" :)

Originally Posted by Alex_krsk

But look at norway btw. What do they produce besides pumping oil and gas? Not that much.

As their neighbour and speaking the language, more or less... In addition to oil, they have
1) Fish, fish and more fish....
2) Svalbard and a slice of the Arctic and whatever is hidden there...
3) Ports to the Atlantic that Sweden and Finland use as well - it's a source of income.
4) A little bit of ship building - but it's cheaper to do it in Asia, so I don't know if it's still active.

The state there is HUGE and apparently very bureacratic in an old fashioned way. They never had to/needed to or wanted to slim down the state - so everything is very bureaeucratic.

They have managed the oil money quite well, paying back all debts and investing in public services.

The state, mainly, owns the oil, similar to in Russia, I think... But lots of private companies are involved in serving Statoil, that's what some people got rich on there.

They know they have to get ready for when the oil runs out and have lots of projects preparing for it.
Same dilemma as Russia I think. They know they need to diversify but it's not easy. .

Before they found the oil they were a well managed social democratic, and quite christian country. However, historically (pre-1950s or so, Norway was always poor, but people are hardworking and honest. They had a big transformation of society recently though. Same thing as the rest of Western Europe; issues with immigration and drastic rise in criminality.

But the most important thing that Norway doesn't own their oil and gas, they just collect tax from BP.
Norway had exchanged their sovereignty for garanteed piece of their oil pie.

Really? Are you sure about that? I thought that Statoil (state owned Norwegian official oil company). owned the Norwegian oil and BP or anyone else bought off them. In Scandianvia you see their oil tankers and petrol stations everywhere. I think it sells gas as well.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Statoil is similar in its structure, to Gazprom I believe.

Statoil is technically a bramch of BP. While on mass media it's more or less independent.
But i may be mistaken, information is pretty old.

Really? Are you sure about that?

I'm afraid i'm. But let me check for some sources

I thought that Statoil (state owned Norwegian official oil company). owned the Norwegian oil and BP or anyone else bought off them. In Scandianvia you see their oil tankers and petrol stations everywhere. I think it sells gas as well.

One of my clients owns a network of gas stations with signs "LUKOIL" whereas he only has a long term contract for supply with lukoil and nothing else.
In the US there are a bunch of gas companies with different fancy logos which are just branches of chevron

Originally Posted by Alex_krsk

Statoil is technically a bramch of BP. While on mass media it's more or less independent.
But i may be mistaken, information is pretty old.

Oops, I was editing my post while you replied

I'm no expert on this either, but I don't think BP owns Statoil.
I recently worked at BP, I think I would have heard... And it's not in the Wikipedia article.
BP had a couple of thosand employees in Norway, which I remember from this previous job...

Statoil must employ 10,000 people, at least!

Anyway, their situation IS similar to Russia's, and they have a lot less oil than Russia.
They will face the end of oil and gas before Russia does.
Hopefully they have sorted something out by then - or it's back to fishing and knitting colourful cardigans for them...