A leading company in the energy transition?

Let’s start with the big picture. We’re making progress. From 2015 to 2023, we’ve reduced greenhouse gas emissions from our own oil and gas production by 30%. In 2020, four percent of our investments went into renewable energy and low-carbon solutions. Last year? That number hit 20%. Between 2022 and 2023, we doubled our power production from renewables. And this year, we’re upping it again—all while delivering the energy the world needs, with fewer and fewer emissions.

Do we wish the energy transition was happening faster? Absolutely. That’s why we’re searching for better solutions every day. But it takes time. Which is why we think it’s important to spread the good news along the way. Because there really is some.

In September, we marked the opening of Northern Lights—the world’s first cross-border CO₂ transport and storage facility—which is now ready for operations in Øygarden, west of Bergen. It’s an important step in showing how European industry can cut emissions using capture and safe storage on the Norwegian continental shelf.

In the UK, we’ve achieved another significant milestone. This autumn, the government decided to support the country’s first ever infrastructure projects for carbon capture and storage. Here, we’re involved in two projects with BP which can help cut emissions from British industry.

Then there’s renewable energy. Even though we’re narrowing our focus on offshore wind markets, the coming years will be our busiest yet. The offshore wind farms we’re building off the coasts of the US, England, and Poland will generate enough renewable power to supply over eight million homes. That’s as much power as a sixth of Norway’s current hydroelectric capacity. And while Norway’s hydropower took over a century to build, we’re planning to achieve this in just five years. Our offshore wind projects—plus our new position as the second-largest owner in renewables giant Ørsted—are important steps in the right direction.

In short, there’s a lot happening. Projects that were on the drawing board not long ago are now becoming reality. We’re proud of that. Nevertheless, we know there’s still a long way to go. If we’re going to be a leading company in the energy transition, we need to keep finding more and better solutions. We’ve need to be brave enough to try—and brave enough to fail. It’s the only way to get wiser.

Now isn’t the time to sit back, but for turning words into actions.

We get that. But for us, being a leader in the energy transition doesn’t automatically mean that we’ll be the fastest and first to phase out production of oil and gas, or be the one that wins most competitions for the right to develop offshore wind farms, no matter the cost. Our vision is to always search for better. Better ways. Better technologies. Better solutions for reducing and storing emissions. And better ways to produce the energy we deliver today, and which the world will need in the years to come. Not least, it’s about not giving up, even when we face grave uphill battles. This is part of our DNA, it’s who we are, and who we’ve always been. And now, more than ever before, we are called upon to step up.

I hear you, but surely you can speed things up a bit? Yes, in fact that’s what we’re working to do every single day, alongside our suppliers, partners and the authorities. There’s no denying that it takes time to transform an energy system that’s still made up of 80% fossil energy.

Fourteen years have passed since work started to develop the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Dogger Bank. Last year, the first electricity reached households in England. When the entire farm with its more than 270 fixed foundation turbines is ready to go, it will supply more than six million British homes with renewable energy. In 1996, we started storing CO₂ under the seabed in the North Sea. But it won’t be until 2025 that we can really start to store huge volumes of CO₂ for others, which is an essential component in decarbonising European heavy industry, and achieving our climate objectives.

These things take time. But progress is being made – one step at a time. Last year, one in every five kroner we invested went to renewable energy and low-carbon solutions, like carbon capture and storage. In 2030, the ambition calls for half of our gross investments to go towards this. So far, we’ve cut 30% of the emissions from our own oil and gas production. As we said, our ambition is to achieve 50% by 2030.

In other words, we’ve made a start. Will this also pose a challenge as we move forward? Of course, but it’s the most vitally important task we face. We’re going to need new ideas, new angles and approaches. And we won’t always know exactly where to look, or what to look for. If you think about it, this is the only logical way to go when we’ve embarked upon the task of transforming energy systems that took more than 100 years to build.

There’s a long race left to run, but our ambitions stand firm. And while we don’t have all the answers right now, we do have 23,000 skilled employees who are looking high and low to find them. By searching for a better way, every day.