On September 16 the Norwegian Minister of Culture Thorhild Widwey will launch Norwegian Oil and Gas Archives. Key players in the Norwegian oil and gas industry, including Arve Johnsen, Statoil's first CEO and Gro Brækken, CEO of Norwegian oil and gas, will give a speech at the launch.

 

The Norwegian Oil and Gas Archives is established by the National Archives as a three-year pilot project. The goal is to ensure that the most important records of the oil and gas sector are kept and used, both for research, cultural and operational needs. That this type of records are preserved and made available, is essential to study the impact that the industry had and still has on society in general.

 

- This exciting pilot project will ensure that authentic records from an industry that has changed our nation's life, are preserved and made available for use. The Regional State Archives in Stavanger has worked with records and archives management within the oil and gas sector for a number of years and has developed high expertise within this field. This important work will ensure that the story of the emergence of Norway as an oil nation also can be studied and told in the future. The rapid development that our country has had since the beginning of the oil age is second to none, and future generations can learn a lot from how we have managed the values ​​created, says Culture Minister Thorhild Widwey.

 

  The Norwegian Oil and Gas Archives work with all the major oil and gas companies on the Norwegian continental shelf, unions, suppliers, associations and state governments in this sector.

 

Statoil's first CEO Arve Johnsen puts it this way:
- The events in the Norwegian petroleum sector from 1960 to 2014 has forever changed Norway and our global role. Gradually transformed petroleum wealth in the continental shelf geologic structures to "petro-money" - our new and everlasting wealth. On 1. September 2014 the amount was at the Petroleum Fund appr. 800 billion Euros and Norway is about to become one of the leading exporters of capital.

 

During the launch the National Archivist will make all the records of the State Oil office from the 1960s and 1970s open to the public through the internet. This office was the first state agency that dealt with the oil and gas business in Norway

 

The Norwegian oil and gas archives is unique, also internationally.
- To gather authentic records from both the public and private organizations of a society sector in one place, guaranteeing a wide range of source material has, as far as we know, no similar parallels. Such an organisation could act as a model also for other countries, says Torkel Thime, Project Manager of the Norwegian Oil and Gas archives.

 

The operations of the Norwegian oil and gas archives are located at the National Archives in Stavanger.

 

The launch of the Norwegian Oil and Gas Archives occurs on 16 September 2014 at. 10 to 13 at the offices of ExxonMobil Norway, Grenseveien 6, 4313 Sandnes.

 

For more information contact Torkel Thime, Project Manager of the Norwegian Oil and Gas Archives / National Archives in Stavanger
Tel. 51501260/91559642
Email: toth@arkivverket.no

www.oljearkivet.no