I'm Already Starting to Like Statoil -- It Must Be That Viking Spirit

Statoil tells UK: you keep dissing us, and we will sell our natural gas that we had allocated for England to other countries.

Norway’s Statoil has threatened to sell its North Sea natural gas to other markets if the UK’s Energy Sec. Chris Huhne prevails in his efforts to expand the country’s use of renewable energy and curb the growth of fossil fuel power plants.

“We will continue to develop new production in the North Sea, but the question is which market it finds its way into,” said Rune Bjornson, Statoil vice-president, natural gas.

“There are other places we can export the gas to apart from the UK. We have the gas you need if you want it,” Bjornson said.

“The UK is one of the most challenging markets at the moment when it comes to reading the future energy policy,” said Bjornson, adding, “We are getting different signals from different parts of government—we don't know which opinion will prevail.”

Yeah, Statoil is alright.