{"id":569,"date":"2019-03-15T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T16:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portstrategy.nfdtesting.uk\/greenport\/2019\/03\/15\/arctic-oil-vs-sustainability-in-northern-norway\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T13:45:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T12:45:37","slug":"arctic-oil-vs-sustainability-in-northern-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/news\/europe-greenport\/arctic-oil-vs-sustainability-in-northern-norway\/","title":{"rendered":"Arctic oil vs sustainability in northern Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As a gateway to the Arctic, Troms\u00f8 has seen growing activities related to the oil and gas industry after Norway granted oil licences in the high north, despite strong opposition from environmental groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2018, Norway pushed ahead with its Arctic plans after winning a legal challenge brought by Greenpeace and the Nature and Youth Group, which claimed Arctic drilling violated people\u2019s right to a healthy environment. Greenpeace announced that it will appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Norway is Western Europe\u2019s largest producer and exporter of oil and gas and has shown no signs of reducing its pumping activities despite its commitments under the Paris Agreement to move away from fossil fuels by the middle of this century. The Arctic region is one of the last frontiers for natural resources discovery and is believed to have great potential for oil and gas reserves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As a result of Norway\u2019s push to drill its northern region, the Port of Troms\u00f8 has seen an increase in activities relating to oil exploration and the developments of the Barents Sea fields. Heidi Johnsen, a spokeswoman for the Port of Troms\u00f8, says that Troms\u00f8 has been earmarked under a national plan \u201cto facilitate sustainable development for Northern Norway\u201d, including commercial activity in the Artic region. \u201cThe Port of Troms\u00f8 believes in the growth of the oil and gas sector to boost the port\u2019s business,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With the prospect of big profits driving ever more oil and gas companies to the Arctic, the Port of Troms\u00f8 developed a former fort known as Gr\u00f8tsund into a 1.5 million meter square offshore base, which includes a new port and industrial area to respond to growing demand. Located 12 kilometres north of Troms\u00f8, the Gr\u00f8tsund base is strategically placed on a northern deep sea route which leads to the oil fields in the Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea. With a 130-meter-long quay which boasts alongside depth of up to 22 meters, the base is designed to accommodate heavy lifting operations, industrial projects and offshore drilling ships.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Johnsen says the Gr\u00f8tsund offshore base was built to be the preferred port for storage and transportation of goods and equipment for oil and gas fields and renewable energy development projects. It also offers facilities for the repair and maintenance of oil rigs, vessels and subsea equipment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The base has successfully strengthened the Port of Troms\u00f8\u2019s claim as the gateway to the Arctic and acts as an anchor point for oil and gas exploration activities beyond the Arctic circle. But at what cost? These developments are locking Norway and the countries importing its oil and gas into decades of burning fossil fuels. It comes at a time when leading scientists from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the world has 12 years to take \u201crapid, far-reaching and unprecedented\u201d measures to reduce CO2 emissions in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When asked about the measures the Gr\u00f8tsund base has in place to reduce its environmental impact, Ms Johnsen mentioned the provision of shore power, which allows ships to access electricity when docked in the port without using polluting generators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, if Norway is to do its fair share to tackle climate change, the Gr\u00f8tsund base and the Port of Troms\u00f8 will have to play their part in ensuring profits are not put before the environment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The impact of the Norwegian port of Troms\u00f8s recent oil drilling license award is of concern to environmentalists. Chlo\u00e9 Farand investigates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}