Ambitious goals  

We aim to retain our position as the largest operator on the NCS, while seeking to strengthen our international presence.

What are the challenges?

Our business environment is increasingly challenging. High oil and gas prices have boosted competition over energy resources. In addition, strong competition over important input factors and limited capacity in key supplier markets has meant high cost inflation in our industry. As a consequence of high oil and gas prices, host countries have also tightened their fiscal regimes for oil companies. Climate change imposes serious challenges for our industry, but represents new business opportunities.

What do we do about the challenges?

Our primary objective is to generate profit for our shareholders. We seek to meet this goal by realising the whole potential of the NCS while developing solid positions internationally.

We need to remain a competitive and sustainable group, develop new business opportunities in oil and gas, and search for other sources of energy. We need to continue improving the energy and environmental efficiency of our production. And we need to remain an attractive employer.

We are a technology-based energy group which focuses on upstream activities. With a continued emphasis on health, safety and the environment as a competitive advantage and a cornerstone of our operations, we plan to concentrate our efforts on four areas:

• maximising long-term value creation from the NCS
• building profitable international growth
• developing profitable midstream and downstream positions
• creating a platform for new energy.

In the short term, we will give weight to achieving predictable and efficient operation by realising the potential value resulting from the merger of Statoil ASA with the oil and gas assets of Norsk Hydro ASA. In a longer perspective, our commitment will be to develop prospects and projects which make us even better and lead to profitable growth. We will act in a responsible and sustainable manner through continuous efforts to improve the energy and environmental efficiency in our production processes.

What have we achieved?

Important achievements in 2007 include:

• the StatoilHydro merger was completed on schedule
• Snøhvit, Ormen Lange, Statfjord late life, Skinfaks/Rimfaks IOR, Huldra tail end, Rosa, Tordis IOR and Njord gas came on stream

Three international projects were sanctioned for development:

• Peregrino in Brazil, Pazflor in Angola and the Leismer demonstration project in Canada
• our global trading position was strengthened through a 25% increase in trading third-party volumes compared with 2006.