Områdeløsningen for kraft fra land til Sverdrup-feltet og området rundt blir utvidet slik at hele ti felt på Utsira-høyden i Nordsjøen nå vil få kraft fra land. Kraftløsningen betyr en samlet utslippsreduksjon på mer enn en million tonn CO2 per år.
Løsningen kommer som et resultat av at selskapene med interesser i Sverdrup-feltet og området rundt har blitt enige om en løsning som sikrer full utnyttelse av områdeløsningen for kraft fra land til Utsira.
Les hele pressemeldingen HER
Våre inntekter i framtiden må komme fra utlandet. Når olje og gass på sikt kaster mindre av seg, må vi utvikle nye produkter og tjenester vi kan eksportere og tjene penger på. Vi vet at verden trenger bærekraftige løsninger og at næringslivet må omstilles. Dermed vet vi også hvor norske bedrifter skal vokse.
VEKST I BEDRIFTENE er avgjørende for Norge, for velferden, og dermed for hver og en av oss. I en liten, åpen økonomi, handler det om å vokse internasjonalt. Eksport og internasjonalisering starter hjemme, med å identifisere behov, forstå kundene og tilpasse løsningene for å treffe best mulig. Skal Norge ta posisjoner i tøffe, internasjonale markeder, må bedriftene være blant de beste på sine områder og forstå hvordan verdikjeder og markeder endrer seg.
Les hele saken HER.
A capacity crowd of member company leaders and partner representatives joined US Ambassador Kenneth J. Braithwaite, AmCham Chairman Pål Rokke and Minister of Digitalization Nikolai Astrup at AmCham’s annual member reception at the US Ambassador’s Residence, Villa Otium.
It was a night that celebrated longstanding economic ties between the US and Norway – and AmCham’s continued work to develop, expand, and deepen Norwegian-American business relations.
“I couldn’t say greater things about AmCham and their work to create jobs and strengthen economic ties between the United States and Norway,” noted Ambassador Braithwaite in his opening remarks, highlighting how AmCham plays an instrumental role in coordinating the transatlantic business community.
The Ambassador was followed by AmCham Board Chairman and Citi Country Manager Pål Rokke, who underscored how technology companies have become AmCham’s largest and fastest growing member industry group – a sector that will not only be a catalyst for expanding public-private partnerships but will also help Norway realize its tremendous untapped potential as a global innovation hub.
Rokke’s speech focusing on the tech sector and private-public partnerships was also a perfect segue to Minister Nikolai Astrup’s remarks. Minister Astrup, Norway’s first ever Minister of Digitalization, touched on how countries must adapt and evolve to thrive in the digital global economy of the 21st century, noting “Many like to say that the pace of change has never been this fast, but I’d like to point out that the current pace of change will never be this slow again. That means countries will have to change.”
In Norway’s case, he argued that the country must embrace radical digitalization, “Norway’s doing yesterday’s digitalization, but what we really need now is radical digitalization – solving challenges and finding opportunities in completely new and better ways.”
Minister Astrup then emphasized that AmCham and its member companies would play a critical role in this evolution, bringing together the expertise and resources necessary to turn Norway into a global leader in digital solutions. “To realize Norway’s ambitions, public-private cooperation is essential, and that is why what AmCham and AmCham member companies are doing is so important,” he concluded.
Guests then enjoyed Norwegian-themed hors d’oeuvres and a notable assortment of wines from Charles Smith, Beringer, and Robert Mondavi. In addition to Ambassador Braithwaite and the US Embassy, AmCham would like to sincerely thank Strøm and Treasury Wine Estates for their generous support!
Fra taket av One World Trade Center lengst sør på Manhattan ser man store deler av havneområdet i New York på alle kanter. Store båter på Hudson River og East River blir som små leketøy mer enn 500 meter lenger nede. Christer af Geijerstam – leder for Equinors havvindsatsing i USA – gestikulerer ivrig.
– Om noen år seiler vi nedover Hudson River cirka hver femte dag med store fundamenter, sier han.
Lasten han snakker om, er 30 meter høye betongkolosser som skal bygges på elven nord i staten New York – ved Albany – og fraktes til millionbyen. Her i havnen skal betongsøylen reises på høykant og et 20 meter høyt understell i stål kobles på. Så skal det fraktes ut på havet. Vindmøllene blir rundt 100 meter høye når de er ferdige.
Lese hele saken HER.
Norway’s krone hit the weakest on record against the euro, surpassing the previous record set during the 2008 financial crisis.
The krone touched 10.1641 per euro at 2:45 p.m. in Oslo, according to Bloomberg data, amid pressure from global tensions and weakening oil prices.
Originally from Silicon Valley, it’s no surprise that StormGeo Chief Marketing Officer Cynthia Harris sees encouraging her employees to innovate, experiment, and take risks as a critical part of international leadership. Harris sat down with AmCham for a dynamic conversation on what it takes to lead in an industry poised to play a key role in the global sustainability agenda going forward.
Where did you start? Can you give us a brief description of your path to where you are now?
I’m originally from Silicon Valley, where I founded a marketing and public relations agency. I built and grew the agency to 34 people, expanded to New York, and when we signed a major client, it took the company to the next level, particularly internationally.
Not long after working with this client, they asked if we could support their marketing and PR efforts in Europe, and I hired my first employee in London.
It was the period after this that eventually led me to my role in StormGeo. The agency had evolved to become a virtual agency with part-to-full time consultants.
At that time, one of my Silicon Valley clients was Applied Weather Technology, who were providing weather and routing information to the shipping industry, primarily in the European and Asia Pacific regions.
In total, I consulted for them for six years as the only marketing resource they had.
And this was through the company you founded?
Yes, it was. They offered me a full-time position, but the timing just wasn’t quite right. A couple of years later, however, they offered me a position again. This time, I took the job. There comes a point in time when the kids are soon to be off to college, and I knew I wanted to return to the corporate workplace.
And that was in January 2014, correct?
That’s right. A month after I started my new position, StormGeo, a Norwegian company, acquired us.
StormGeo asked me to come to Bergen for the summer to begin building the marketing program, then a few months later, they asked if I would head and build a global marketing team for their organization. To me, this was an inspiring opportunity! I was challenged by the cultural differences, but I was quickly put at ease because my colleagues readily spoke English and had an admirable work-life balance.
For 18 months, I went back and forth between Norway and Silicon Valley, and in 2016, my husband and I moved to Oslo.
What are some of the important decisions you make as a leader of the organization, and how do they impact its global presence?
StormGeo has 25 offices in 16 countries, and initially I thought it best to have the marketing team placed in several regions. Now, however, I have consolidated the team – the majority in Oslo, and others in Hong Kong and the US. This has improved the efficiency and comradery of the team.
As far as impacting the company’s global presence, for us it’s important that the public presence of the company is aligned with the company’s vision globally.
What are some recent projects you’re excited to talk about?
One of the initiatives that I spearheaded was to be a part of the UN Global Compact, specifically the Action Platform for Sustainable Ocean Business. With StormGeo’s ocean scientists, data scientists, climate scientists, and meteorologists, we are made up of people who are passionate about weather and protecting the planet’s natural resources. I believed we could make a valuable contribution.
In 2018, we saved our shipping clients one million metric tons of fuel, which equates to 2.98 million tons of CO2 or the removal of 625,000 cars from the road for one year. This is done by helping them find the most safe and fuel-efficient routes.
Furthermore, we support 30% of offshore wind farms globally, improving the efficiency of clean energy production. Hence, we were very happy to be invited to be a Participant in the UN Global Compact in August 2018.
In fact, I just returned from the United Nations Global Compact Leaders Week at the UN headquarters in New York City, which brought together business leaders from around the world who are committed to advancing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. They challenged business leaders to take action in their companies in regard to all 17 SDGs, including climate action and life below water, calling for a “Decade of Action.” In StormGeo, we are bringing these ideas home in a variety of different ways, training staff and taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint through initiatives such as establishing sustainability ambassadors in each of our offices.
So how do you build team morale and maintain creativity in an international organization?
By taking initiatives like the one I talked about—sustainability! People get excited when they have the opportunity to work on projects that make a difference. In an onboarding meeting with two new employees recently, one of them said he chose our company because of our sustainability commitment. For our employees, the opportunity to tell these stories and influence others to adopt sustainable practices is very cool. Taking initiatives like this are great for team morale.
Aside from that, I think a critical part of building team morale is listening to the creative ideas of the whole team, giving every person an opportunity to share their ideas and voice their opinions – this shows employees that they’re valued. In many of our marketing team meetings, we break into a brainstorm session to get the best ideas to surface. We have a lot of fun!
This gets back to leadership style. How has your leadership style evolved? Have you used the same leadership style in Norway as you did in Silicon Valley?
I believe I do have the same leadership style here in Norway, a leadership style that encourages my team to take risks and to innovate through experimentation. When I ran my marketing agency, one of the first things I did was establish a culture club managed by a small group of employees to ensure we had a good culture across the organization. I believe it helped us achieve a high level of employee retention.
But getting back to risk taking, it’s very important that the people I lead have the freedom to take risks. I always want to be facilitating the exchange of new ideas and trying new things. And that’s something that I would absolutely continue if I moved to another country
However, the culture in Norway is very different from Silicon Valley. I’ve had to evolve and adapt to a new way of doing things, such as a flat organizational structure and valuing the wonderful work-life balance here.
Do you think your Silicon Valley background helps you think outside the box?
The great thing about Silicon Valley is that people there are willing to give their time and connections to help you, whether you’re starting a company, looking for employment, or seeking out resources to improve your job performance. They have ideas and act on them, creating something new, something exciting.
So, in a way, when you think about me moving from San Francisco to Oslo, that mindset took over. I knew I needed to live in Oslo to do the job well, and by inquiring about it, the opportunity opened up. Part of the decision was to take a risk, and that’s where I think that Silicon Valley mindset really helps, in addition to always looking at the possibilities.
How did the integration process between StormGeo and Applied Weather Technologies work?
The integration process was very well done, and I can really give StormGeo a lot of credit for that. There was an integration manager that came to Silicon Valley and wanted to make sure that the Silicon Valley office felt very much a part of the broader organization and very valued.
However, US companies have bigger marketing budgets than Norwegian companies. Norwegian companies tend to be somewhat reserved and conservative about their offerings and their competitive differentiation. And that really surprised me. That was something that I thought I could help to change. I didn’t want to understate the incredible work we’re doing for our clients.
I wanted to tell those stories. Not to overstate them, of course, but I just wanted to tell the real story and highlight how we are making an impact for our customers.
Now, given the incredible growth we’ve had in Storm Geo with the acquisition of AWT and other acquisitions as well, we as a company embrace the fact that we are a leader in this industry and are telling our story.
What do you believe are some shared traits all good leaders have?
Well, I think I mentioned one already. I think that good leaders are creators who can take an idea and bring it to life. Good leaders are also willing to take risks and weigh their options carefully when taking those risks.
Do you think there are any common mistakes that leaders make, especially with regard to other international leaders coming to Norway or vice versa with Norwegian leaders going abroad?
I think a common mistake is not listening and under communicating in the whole organization. I don’t think enough leaders focus on listening to the concerns, ideas, and thoughts of their team. And consistent communication is important to keep people feeling tied-in to what’s going on.
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If your job was a sport which sport would it be?
Marathon running. You’ve got to see the end goal. A lot of things that we do in marketing are not immediate, and I think most leaders really understand this. You have to persevere and go through it. If you think about the training of a marathon runner and how they keep relentlessly pushing the limits and going further and further every single day until they reach their goal, well, I think some things in marketing are like that.
Put simply, it’s not always a quick return. Some things are bigger than that.
How do you continue growing and developing as a leader?
Decide to adapt to change that comes along as you go. As the marketing industry has changed, it’s important that I change with it and bring new best practices to my organization.
When I think about my career and the changes I’ve made, I realize how important it is to not dig your heels into the ground and resist change. If you do that, you stay stuck.
I also have a very strong professional network, and I am constantly listening to podcasts, reading about my field and looking for new insights, new ways of doing things. I do the same with various TED talks and other things like that.
In sum, it’s critical to have to an almost continual willingness to learn and develop.
There’s one little extra thing I’d like to add that’s also critical if you really want to grow and evolve. You have to love feedback.
For example, a great friend of mine is a computer scientist at Facebook. I was in Silicon Valley with a group of people from Norway, and I asked him if we could tour their offices. He gave us a tour, and they had a number of places throughout the office where they had posters with nice or funny things on them.
One of the posters really hit me. It said, “Feedback is a gift.” I thought that is a great way to look at it. It really is a gift, you know. How are we ever going to continue to grow, change, and improve if we don’t get feedback?
Where do you see yourself and StormGeo in five years?
I believe I’ll be helping StormGeo tell its story to the world — a story of innovation, sustainability and digitalization. In five years, I see us continuing to push the limits of how far we can innovate in weather intelligence. On a personal level, that means I will be working in Norway, speaking Norwegian, serving on boards, and continuing to mentor women entrepreneurs.
What would be your advice to the next generation of leaders, people such as those in AmCham’s Rising Leaders program?
I would say to take risks because you never know what can open up in life for you if don’t venture out. The thing is though, sometimes you don’t know what you can do until you actually go for it.
That’s where I was, for example, early in my career when our major client asked us to support their efforts in Europe. I had never done that before, but I just decided to go for it, so stretch your own personal limits! When I’ve worked with my clients that are speaking at large events, I always tell them, “You want to speak to that crowd in a way that’s just a little bit uncomfortable for you, in a way that might seem like it’s a little too much. Because if you do that, you might be uncomfortable, but the speech will be just right.”
What was the latest time you responded to an e-mail last night?
Around 7:30, I’d guess. But you didn’t ask me how early I look at my e-mails in the morning. I set my plans for the day early in the morning, before seven o’clock, with my morning coffee. Then I check my email. When you’re an international company, there’s a lot that happens while you sleep. And some things are immediate, and you can respond quickly and get on to other important things.
Ingrid Sølvberg tar over som direktør i Oljedirektoratet etter Bente Nyland, ifølge en melding.
Hun ble utnevnt av Kongen i statsråd fredag. Olje- og energidepartementet har ikke fastsatt hvilken dato hun skal ta over.
Bente Nylands periode går imidlertid ut ved nyttår. Direktørstillingen i Oljedirektoratet lyses ut som åremålsstilling på seks år, med mulighet for en forlengelse i en ny seksårsperiode.
Les hele saken HER.
Equinor ASA made a final decision to invest in floating wind turbines to power offshore oil platforms off Norway after the government agreed to subsidize a large part of the cost.
Hywind Tampen will cost a total of almost 5 billion kroner ($550 million), it said in a statement on Friday. That’s in line with the state-controlled company’s earlier estimate.
Norway has released an action plan for green shipping, saying that its maritime industry is a world leader in the development of low- and zero-emission solutions.
The Government’s ambition is to reduce emissions from domestic shipping and fishing vessels by half by 2030. The report notes that with current technology, maritime transport is generally the most energy efficient mode of transport. Additionally, tire wear is the largest direct source of microplastics in Norway, and about half of all microplastics end up in the sea. If a shift in freight transport from road to sea helps to reduce the total volume of road traffic, it will be an important means of reducing the spread of microplastics.
Read entire article HERE.
ASKER, NORWAY – Kongsberg Digital, a subsidiary of KONGSBERG, signed an agreement to digitalize the Nyhamna facility, a gas processing and export hub for Ormen Lange and other fields connected to the Polarled pipeline. A/S Norske Shell is entering the partnership as operator of Ormen Lange and on behalf of Gassco as the operator of Nyhamna. The value of the contract scope, with a fully realized dynamic digital twin, is approximately 100 MNOK – with agile and iterative deliverables starting from Q4 2019.
Read entire article HERE.