A set of UN principles designed to promote human rights, labour and the environment has been adopted by Statoil.
The Global Compact was launched at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland last year, when US secretary-general Kofi Annan urged the world's business leaders to act in accordance with the nine principles.
Statoil signed the Global Compact at a conference in the UN's New York headquarters last week.
Representatives of international industry, trade unions and organisations involved with human rights and environmental protection were gathered at this meeting to support the initiative and discuss how the principles should be observed in practice.
"We share Mr Annan's view that the UN's effectiveness and authority could be strengthened through cooperation with international companies," says Willy H Olsen, head of the executive committee secretariat. He represented Statoil at the conference.
"We'll accordingly be supporting the UN when it implements measures to promote human rights and measures for health, the environment and safety."