Prime minister of Norway heading to China for four-day visit beginning Friday
After a seven-year rift in relations between Norway and China, the two countries are looking to increase cooperation on energy, a senior Norwegian official told Reuters.
After a meeting with CNOOC in Beijing on Thursday, Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde, Norways’ deputy oil and energy minister, said China is looking to Norway to learn about reducing costs and pollution.
“CNOOC was interested in how Norway have reduced costs and our experiences in clean and environmentally friendly technology … (they) would like to learn more from Norway and the Norwegian industry,” Tybring-Gjedde told Reuters after talks with Lv Bo, CNOOC vice president and chairman of the group’s two listed subsidiaries.
On Friday, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will begin a four-day visit to China, the first since the two nations restored full diplomatic relations last December.
Solberg is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday as well as other Chinese officials.
Statoil’s CEO Eldar Saetre will accompany Solberg along with a number of business executives on the journey to China. Statoil declined to comment on the meetings.
Relations between the two countries cooled in 2010 after the Norwegian committee chose to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who remains in prison.
Despite the falling out, Statoil has collaborated with CNOOC and Sinochem on projects in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, respectively.
Norway is looking to attract new investment and interest from major oil companies after oil production in the Scandinavian country had dropped by half since peaking around 2000.
“We had an open dialogue and agreed to cooperate more closely,” Tybring-Gjedde said.
Currently, Statoil sells about 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Chinese refineries, as well as LPG and other products.
