Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre and three of his ministers have spent much of this year touring the continent, trying to convince top EU policymakers that Norway’s Arctic oil and gas are crucial for Europe’s energy security.
Their pitch is that Norwegian gas and oil is cleaner and supply is more secure than anything coming from Russia, the Gulf or even the US.
Store’s core claim is that the 2022 energy crisis would have been far worse without Norway’s increased Arctic gas exports.
“We increased our gas exports to the EU when the war in Ukraine broke out, and all of that increase came from the Arctic,” Støre told the Financial Times in June.
Norwegian daily Dagens Næringsliv reported later that Arctic supplies in fact accounted for less than half of that increase.
