Twenty years have passed since StatoilHydro sold its first oil barrel from a small sales office on Manhattan. Today 80 employees at the Stamford office represent the bridgehead of the oil and gas sales in the world's largest energy market.
Two years ago the employees moved into a new office building in the city of Stamford, one hour's train drive north-east of New York.
"It is already too small," says Luann Smith, head of the marketing and trading subsidiary.
A growing number of financial institutions and companies with global interests are locating offices in the city nicknamed «the city that works».
The Stamford office is growing rapidly, its total revenues in 2007 totalling some NOK 60 billion. Since the start-up in 1987 the office's role and strategy in the US has changed. At the beginning 13 employees were busy supplying the buyers with crude from Norway. The company is now trading a wider range of oil grades from third-parties to customers all over North America.
We also trade refined products and have acquired a strong new dimension with gas sales to the US," Smith says.
"Although we primarily want to trade our own crude, supplementing these volumes with third-party oil cargoes has become an important activity here," says oil trader Stein Erling Brekke.
In addition to trading and marketing StatoilHydro is involved in exploration and production activities run in the US Gulf and holds interest in several fields off St. Johns in Canada and the regasification terminal at Cove Point, Maryland. The planned production in the enormous oil sands area in Alberta, Canada, will be added to this.
According to Smith the continued outlook for growth for StatoilHydro in the US is very good. The level of activity has been growing and the group’s standing with costumers has strengthened – even though it is bringing fewer barrels of crude across the Atlantic as Norwegian offshore output declines.
Published 2008-02-14, 15:48 CET | Updated 2008-02-15, 08:03 CET
