Norwegian minister for the environment, Helen Bjørnøy of the Socialist Left Party, will visit the Sleipner A platform in the North Sea today, 12 September, together with a delegation from the department for the environment.
Environment minister Helen Bjørnøy, Statoil's senior vice president for the environment Tor Fjæran and vice president for Sleipner A operations Bente Aleksandersen, pictured prior to take-off from Stavanger. (Photo: Harald Pettersen)
On Sleipner, Ms Bjørnøy will be briefed about Statoil's ground-breaking work with carbon capture on the Sleipner West gas field. She will also get to know more about the group's environmental work.
Statoil has long been a pioneer in carbon capture and storage. Today, the group operates three of the world's largest projects in this field - Sleipner, Snøhvit in the Barents Sea and In Salah in Algeria, either independently or in partnership with others.
"I'm impressed at what Statoil has achieved at Sleipner," says Ms Bjørnøy. "The group represents an essential focus on environmental technology and has acquired substantial expertise and experience."
"Our ambition is to run our business in an environmentally responsible way and to be pioneers on a global basis," says Tor Fjæran, Statoil's senior vice president for the environment.
He points out that the group has been ranked for the third year consecutively as the world's best company on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index within oil and gas sector sustainability.
There has been great media interest in carbon storage at Sleipner, particularly from the international press. Earlier this month, American press heavyweight The Los Angeles Times ran a large article on Statoil's storage of carbon dioxide. The newspaper highlights Statoil's efforts at Sleipner as an example of how countries around the world may have to proceed to save the environment.