Six more financial institutions from Northwestern Europe have voiced their opposition to plans by Norway to pursue Arctic oil drilling in a bid to boost Europe’s supply security. According to the opponents, energy transition efforts should take priority.
The new opponents include Swedbank Robur Fonder AB, Sarasin & Partners LLP, French pension fund Ircantec, British West Yorkshire Pension Fund, Irish KBI Global Investors, and Swedish bank and pension fund Länsförsäkringar AB, Bloomberg reported.
They join a dozen other financial institutions, most of them from Scandinavia, which earlier this year called for resistance to Norway’s plans to ramp up drilling in the Arctic to replace falling production in mature fields in the North Sea and secure long-term supply of crude oil for European consumers.
“The Arctic is one of the planet’s most vulnerable ecosystems and home to unique wildlife …. Further oil and gas expansion would add pressure to these globally significant ecosystems by increasing the risk of oil spills and leakages,” the first group of opponents said in a letter to the European Commission. The EU has a de facto ban on Arctic drilling, and Norway, while not an EU member, complies with much EU regulation. It is also the EU’s biggest natural gas supplier.
The Nordic country has been lobbying Brussels to reconsider this ban in the wake of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that ignited the latest Middle Eastern war and prompted Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, paralyzing oil and gas flows from the Middle East.
The EU’s current moratorium on drilling in the Arctic is not an informed decision, said the Norwegian Prime Minister last month as Norway looked to pitch its natural gas resources in the Arctic as an energy security asset instead of a climate concern.
“To say that there should be a moratorium on that, I do not think that is informed,” Jonas Gahr Støre told the Financial Times. “I do not think that is updated knowledge.”
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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