Statoil Gets Rare Respite from Green Lobby at AGM

Posted by Joseph Keefe May 9, 2016

WWF, Greenpeace give Statoil (STO) a break after greener shift.

Norwegian oil company Statoil will face only muted criticism of its environmental record at an annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday, in a rare respite caused by a small shift towards green energy.

All major oil firms say they are working to protect the environment, but analysts say it is frequently hard to judge their sincerity. That makes the stridency of green activists' protests at AGMs one yardstick.

On Wednesday, the only critical environmental resolution will be by the Norwegian Grandparents' Climate Campaign, urging Statoil to halt oil and gas exploration worldwide and to pull out of projects such as tar sands in Canada.

Other groups such as the WWF conservation organisation and Greenpeace, which have submitted critical resolutions every year since at least 2010 that attract little support from shareholders, reckon state-controlled Statoil deserves a break.

"We do see a shift in Statoil that we wanted to acknowledge by not pestering them at this year's AGM," said Nina Jensen, head of WWF Norway.

"They have still got a huge way to go," she said, adding that organising resolutions and lobbying also takes a lot of time.

Among shifts in the past year, Statoil has set up a renewable energy area, backed by a $200 million venture capital fund. Last month, Statoil agreed to invest 1.2 billion euros ($1.37 billion) with E.ON to develop a wind farm off Germany.

"There's been a shift since Eldar Saetre took over as CEO" in February 2015, said Martin Norman of Greenpeace. "He's doing things that (former CEO) Helge Lund would never have done."

Saetre welcomed the relative lack of criticism.

"They obviously reckon that we are working with some of the right things and I think so too," he told Reuters. "Over time, I believe that aiming for a low-carbon society is also the most profitable."

Halfdan Wiik, a retired librarian who chairs the Grandparents' Climate Campaign, said Statoil was not doing enough. "You have to keep on annoying them," he said. "We have heard nice words before."

In May 2015, Statoil joined European firms BG Group (BRGXF) , BP, Eni, Royal Dutch Shell (RYDAF) and France's Total in calling for a pricing system for carbon emissions.

A Paris summit on climate change in December set a goal of phasing out net greenhouse gas emissions by 2100. Statoil says its emissions per barrel of oil produced are among the lowest in the world.

Analysts say it is too early to say much about the financial implications of Statoil's shift.

"It remains to be seen. So far the renewable business in Statoil is a very small part of the overall picture," said Kjetil Bakken, an analyst at Carnegie. "My guess is that it obviously helps when it comes to the public image."