AUTONEWS

The green oil of Norwegian origin 

Oil remains fundamental for a number of industries, since its derivatives have applications in a number of areas. Even in transport, where they have led in the last 100 years or so, and where they promise to have a say in the coming decades, because even in 2030 everything points to 70% of the European car fleet-in other continents the percentage promises to be even higher-using combustion engines as their main unit, if not the only one.
But if oil is still a constant in our way of life as a civilization, it does not imply that the harmful effects that its exploitation, transport, refining and burning can be concealed. However, this is not Norway's interpretation, which has announced the opening of yet another “environmentally friendly " oil field. The Norwegians have seen their standard of living skyrocketed with the discovery of oil in the North Sea, which they exploit in order to use the enormous profits that result to finance the social services, among others, with which they contemplate their population. And to compensate for the tonnes of crude oil they take from the underground, they invest a (small) part of the resulting money in the subsidy of electric vehicles. This has enabled Oslo to be awarded the most environmentally friendly city award for its commitment to transport electrification, despite the fact that the bill is paid for the profits from oil exports, which are burned in neighbouring countries.
Now Norway has announced with pomp and circumstance the start of the exploration of a new oil field, the Johan Sverdrup, just 87 miles off the coast (about 140 km), from where it expects to extract 2.7 billion barrels of crude, which should yield to the country's coffers more than 100 billion dollars. It is expected to work for the next 50 years, and this longevity will clash with the fact that Norway has signed the Paris Agreement, which provides for carbon neutrality in 2030, that is, in 10 years ' time.
Norway now exports more than 2 million barrels a day and The New well will considerably raise this bar. The country's average CO2 emissions are around 10 tonnes per inhabitant, a total of 58 million tonnes per year, in line with the European average, according to the Norwegian statistical office. But according to the United Nations, emissions from oil and gas exported by the country amounted to 470 million tonnes in 2017 alone.
It is these values that make it odd to say the least that Norway claims for the new oil field the status of good news for the environment, as announced on the official website of the State Enterprise Equinor. And all because the drilling platform will be more energy efficient than usual, producing only 0.65 kg of CO2 per barrel instead of the usual 18 kg/barrel. It is a pity that, as Paarup Michelsen, the CEO of the Norwegian Climate Foundation, said, drilling accounts for only 5% of the total gases emitted during oil exploration.

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