Equinor may have to move. Paradise in Stavanger is like coming home

AFTENBLADET THINKS: The Paradis area in Stavanger stands out as a natural choice if and when Equinor moves, but there is no big problem if the company chooses Sandnes instead.

“Mayor’s battle” over the location of a new head office for Equinor sounds spicy, but actually this is a rivalry that more than anything shows how inappropriate the current municipal structure in Nord-Jæren is.

Stavanger, Sandnes, Sola and Randaberg should have been one municipality, not four. But that battle appears to be lost, at least in the short term. Even without Conservative mayors in three of the four municipalities, there seems to be movement in the matter, and the fact is that a majority of the inhabitants of the three smallest of the municipalities are still against becoming part of a larger one.

Equinor is by far Norway’s most valuable company, and the very symbol of the Norwegian oil adventure and the Stavanger region’s position as the oil capital. The lease agreement Equinor has for the head office at Forus Øst expires in 2030. Therefore, mapping work has now been initiated to find out what will be the company’s office solution when the contract finally expires.

More than 3,000 employees, out of a total of around 4,600 who work in various buildings in the region, could get a new workplace if Equinor decides to relocate.

Although it has been emphatically stated that the company’s head office will be located in the Stavanger region, Equinor today has a huge office at Fornebu in Oslo, and of course a number of smaller premises around the country. Is the head office function mostly symbolic? Far from.

A forest of other companies, which are partners and suppliers to the bell sheep Equinor, are also established in Rogaland precisely because Equinor is here. Should the company leave Rogaland, the economic repercussions would be dramatic. Even now that the oil age is in full swing.

The mayors of Sandnes and Stavanger, party members Kenny Rettore and Sissel Knutsen Hegdal, both make themselves attractive to Equinor and entice with cream plots for a possible new head office. But both are of course aware that it doesn’t really matter which side of an invisible municipal border it happens on. The important thing is that there will be a place in Nord-Jæren.

We feel certain that the Paradis area in Stavanger, with its central location, very good public transport connections and lots of space, will become a hot topic. There is also no doubt that many Equinor employees will believe that Stavanger is the company’s hometown. And in such a process, the employees’ voices will probably be given weight.

The Paradis plot is also just a stone’s throw from the then modest office premises in an apartment in Lagårdsveien, where Statoil’s first office opened in 1972. In a way, it would be like coming home.