The Johan Castberg ship will earn one billion kroner a week – for 30 years to come – NRK Vestland

– Happy Birthday. To Stord, but also to the nation of Norway.

Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Sp) boasted when he visited the Aker Solutions shipyard in Stord in Vestland this week.

There, Equinor marked that the huge production ship Johan Castberg will soon be launched.

Two years delayed, and with a final bill of over NOK 80 billion for the entire field development.

During the year, the ship will go to the Barents Sea, where production will start.

Vedum: I see hospitals, schools and pensions

Before 2055, the ship will have picked up over 450 million barrels of oil from the sea depths north of Hammerfest.

– The ship will pump up values ​​for around one billion kroner a week, for 30 years, with today’s oil price, says Vedum, who denies that he has dollar signs in his eyes when he sees the ship.

– I see hospitals, schools, pensions and security for you and me. The ship will provide energy to Norway, Europe and the rest of the world.

During the thirty-year period, the ship, at today’s oil price, will thus have pumped up values ​​for around NOK 1.5 thousand billion.

The Norwegian oil fund is currently worth around NOK 17,000 billion.

– What will Norway have to live off of when we have to move away from such projects and ensure that we reach the climate targets?

– This ship is uniquely profitable. But those who wear the overalls must also be involved in building other sectors, such as offshore wind, Vedum replies.

Have filled up old dock

At Aker Solutions in Stord alone, many thousands of people have been busy with work on the ship.

And the future looks bright too. The entire group, in which billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke is indirectly the majority owner, has an order reserve of almost NOK 70 billion.

In order to accept future oil assignments, the Stord shipyard has filled over 6,000 truckloads of stone in an old dock in the yard area.

In the same area they built old oil tankers until well into the 70s, before oil really made its entrance with Statfjord A.

During the marking on newly laid asphalt on Tuesday, thousands of workers gathered to get a free lunch.

– Today there is a distribution of 3,500 hamburgers, says Svanhild Hopland, who was in charge of the food tent.

Rejects favorable tax package

Many of the billions the group will earn come from projects that received the go-ahead after the oil tax package in 2020.

But this week there was a report that called the package “a colossal waste.”

The criticism bounced off the finance minister during the Westland visit.

– There has been criticism of the tax package, but at bottom it creates absolutely enormous values. In the spring of 2020, I wanted to secure the Norwegian oil and gas industry, and the shipbuilding industry. This is a super profitable industry, which creates value for you and me, said Vedum.

Will release large amounts of CO₂

Last autumn, the Climate Committee delivered its work. The advice from the committee was clear:

Norway must cut almost all of its emissions over the course of 27 years.

This means a stop to all oil exploration.

– We will not be able to achieve the Paris Agreement if all worthwhile and profitable discoveries are produced globally, says Borgar Aamaas, senior researcher at Cicero, center for climate research.

Only the emissions from the combustion of the oil collected by Johan Castberg correspond to 4–5 years of Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions.

Then there are emissions from the production itself.

– A quick estimate says that the emissions from production are approximately 10 million tonnes of CO₂. In total, Norway released 49 million tonnes of CO₂equivalents per year, explains Aamaas.

Only transfer money

Professor of social economics at the University of Stavanger, Ola Kvaløy, recalls that the money from the large ship will only make the oil fund a little bigger.

– But then it is only the yield from the oil fund, i.e. 3 per cent, that is again channeled into the economy, he says, and adds:

– It is not money that we lack in Norway, but manpower.

Despite the fact that he is aware that the money from the oil fields has value for Norway, he believes that the importance of oil is sometimes exaggerated.

– They have welfare states in Denmark and Sweden too, even if they don’t have oil, he says.

Klaus Mohn, professor of economics, believes that one is only moving wealth from the seabed to the oil fund.

– It’s the same as selling your childhood home. You move money from one part to another. It is the yield from the oil fund that we have to live on when the income from the oil industry ends, he says.

Both Kvaløy and Mohn were members of the climate committee.