Rossport, Statoil and Norway

dublin | environment | event notice Monday November 20, 2006 13:52 by Laurence Cox - NUI Maynooth laurence.cox at nuim dot ie Dept. of Sociology, NUI Maynooth 087-985 1029

The privatisation of Statoil and its strategy for globalisation

Academic critic of Statoil and Norwegian trade union leader to speak in Maynooth.
Launch of English translation of new report

Monday, November 27th, (2.30 - 4.00)
Dept. of Sociology, rooms 1.9 and 1.10
St. Anne's Building, north campus, NUI Maynooth

Academic critic of Statoil and Norwegian union leader to speak in Maynooth.
Launch of English translation of new report

Monday November 27th, (2.30 - 4 pm)
Department of Sociology, rooms 1.9 and 1.10,
St. Anne's Building, north campus, NUI Maynooth

Helge Ryggvik, one of Norway's leading researchers on energy politics, and Terje Nustad, the leader of the Norwegian energy workers' union SAFE, will be speaking in NUI Maynooth on Monday 27th as part of a 5-day fact-finding visit to Rossport and Dublin. Their visit will focus on making connections between the conflict in Rossport, Statoilís attempt to become a global energy giant and the negative social and environmental effects of this, both in Norway and internationally.

Helge Ryggvik works at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture at the University of Oslo. His research over the past 15 years focuses on the politics of the Norwegian energy industry at home and abroad. Terje Nustad is chair of SAFE (previously OSF), one of two equal-sized unions in the industry. The two recently collaborated on a major report, 'The hidden agenda: a framework for an alternative oil politics', a report on how the partial privatisation of Statoil has led to a global resource grab which privileges short-term profit-making over long-term social and environmental sustainability. A translation of this report will be launched at the seminar.

The report argues that the privatisation of Statoil is part of a broader neo-liberal reorientation in energy policy, which involves the attempt to become a global energy giant through resource grabs in countries with 'undemocratic and corrupt states' with little or no benefit to their populations. It argues instead for an international energy policy developed together with local grassroots democratic movements and oriented towards technology transfer, supporting local development and a serious concern for health, environmental and safety issues. The implications for the Corrib gas project are clear.

The seminar is part of a series organised by the Department of Sociology.
The seminar is free and all are welcome to attend.

For further information, including requests for interviews and meetings, please contact Dr Laurence Cox, Dept. of Sociology,
email laurence.cox@nuim.ie
tel 087-985 10 29.