While most people fear an economic crisis because of the war in the Middle East, Norway is getting richer. High oil and gas prices are delivering enormous profits for Norway’s oil giants – and most of that money ends up in Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, called the Government Pension Fund Global.
Quarterly results from Norway’s largest partly state-owned companies, Equinor, Vår Energi and Aker BP, show multibillion-krone earnings above expectations. Norwegian analysts are predicting an even better result next quarter, when high oil and gas prices will really start to show up on the bottom line. But by far the biggest sums come from Petoro, the oil company that is 100 percent state-owned and last year brought in 243 billion Norwegian kroner (168 billion Danish kroner) in earnings. Its profit from the Iran war is not yet known.
