{"id":44575,"date":"2019-03-19T07:22:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T12:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44575"},"modified":"2019-03-19T07:22:37","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T12:22:37","slug":"what-norways-big-divestment-decision-means-for-fracking-tar-sands-and-global-oil-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44575","title":{"rendered":"What Norway\u2019s Big Divestment Decision Means for Fracking, Tar Sands and Global Oil Exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2019\/03\/18\/norway-sovereign-wealth-fund-divesting-oil-gas-exploration-climate\">What Norway\u2019s Big Divestment Decision Means for Fracking, Tar Sands and Global Oil Exploration<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/norway.jpg?itok=z8qiv0Se\" alt=\"Bergen, Norway\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Norway\u2019s&nbsp;sovereign wealth fund \u2014 a state-owned investment fund worth approximately a trillion dollars \u2014 recently announced it was divesting from oil and gas exploration companies around the world. Not surprisingly, many oil and gas stocks declined following the&nbsp;announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While this is good news for the climate,&nbsp;this was simply a smart business decision. Norway\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, known as the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), primarily exists due to Norwegian oil production. And the fund will continue to be a major investor in companies like&nbsp;Exxon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It appears it\u2019s just cutting its losses on money-losing endeavors like fracking in America, tar sands oil production in Canada, and frontier exploration by&nbsp;UK&nbsp;companies in Africa and South-East&nbsp;Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe government is proposing to exclude companies classified as exploration and production (E&amp;P) companies within the energy sector from the [fund]&nbsp;to reduce the aggregate oil price risk in the Norwegian economy,\u201d the Finance Ministry&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.regjeringen.no\/en\/aktuelt\/excludes-exploration-and-production-companies-from-the-government-pension-fund-global\/id2631707\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">explained in a statement&nbsp;<\/a>announcing the&nbsp;move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dumping Losing\u00a0Assets<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What that translates to in America is essentially a divestment from the shale oil and gas producers like&nbsp;EOG&nbsp;Resources, Apache, Continental, Diamondback, and Chesapeake. Apparently, the fund managers are tired of losing money on fracked oil and&nbsp;gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The move certainly comes at a bad time for the American fracking industry. Their previously endless supply of loans from Wall Street has also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/frackers-face-harsh-reality-as-wall-street-backs-away-11551009601\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">started to dry up<\/a>, leading to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hartenergy.com\/news\/us-shale-producers-hit-brakes-2019-spending-118942\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">budget cuts<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jwnenergy.com\/article\/2019\/2\/encana-confirms-layoffs-following-combination-newfield\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;layoffs<\/a>, and r<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spglobal.com\/platts\/en\/market-insights\/latest-news\/oil\/122018-after-months-of-record-bakken-oil-output-dip-expected-next-month\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">educed oil&nbsp;production.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Canada, among the companies targeted for divestment is Canadian Natural Resources,\u00a0LTD\u00a0\u2014 an Alberta\u00a0tar sands oil producer. The Canadian tar sands oil industry has been\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2018\/10\/25\/canadian-tar-sands-oil-financial-losses\" target=\"_blank\">losing money for several years<\/a>\u00a0and several major oil companies have\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/magazine.cim.org\/en\/news\/2017\/oil-sands-majors-sell-off-assets\/\" target=\"_blank\">sold tar sands assets<\/a>, including\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/commodities\/energy\/u-s-based-devon-energy-says-it-intends-to-exit-canadian-oilsands-sector\" target=\"_blank\">Devon Energy&#8217;s<\/a>\u00a0recent announcement it was getting out of the tar sands production\u00a0business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Norway\u2019s Big Divestment Decision Means for Fracking, Tar Sands and Global Oil Exploration Norway\u2019s&nbsp;sovereign wealth fund \u2014 a state-owned investment fund worth approximately a trillion dollars \u2014 recently announced it was divesting from oil and gas exploration companies around the world. Not surprisingly, many oil and gas stocks declined following the&nbsp;announcement. While this is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[5317,24700,24702,24701,11782,1241,781],"class_list":["post-44575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-desmog-blog","tag-global-oil-exploration","tag-government-pension-fund-global","tag-gpfg","tag-justin-mikulka","tag-norway","tag-tar-sands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44576,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44575\/revisions\/44576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}