DNO ET NORSK OLJEEVENTYR Elsket og fordømt

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has made independence from Russian imports of oil and gas a priority. ‘Energy security is now national security,’ says Deirdre Michie, CEO of OEUK (leading representative body for the UK offshore energy industries). In June 2022, the UK imported no fossil fuel from Russia for the first time on record. According to Statista, Norway was the main supplier of both crude oil and natural gas liquids for the United Kingdom in 2021.  

How did Norway become an important supplier of oil and gas to the global market?  

"DNO – A NORWEGIAN OIL ADVENTURE, Loved and condemned" gives an insight into DNO, Norway's oldest oil company and the first to list on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 1981. Norwegian journalist Arnt Even Bøe wrote the original book. Ken Hodcroft, MD of Increased Oil Recovery (IOR), updated the information given in the book and edited the translation. He met Berge Gerdt Larsen – who became CEO of DNO and is the central figure in this book – in 1971 when they both studied Chemical Engineering at Newcastle University. Ken Hodcroft was to become one of BGL's closest business partners during the development of DNO and other network companies. The translator chosen for this project, David Segar, has a PhD in Hydrogeology and worked in Norway as geologist.

Excerpt: "DNO – A Norwegian oil adventure" is about the ten-year period after Berge Gerdt Larsen took over control of DNO in 1996. During this period, DNO went from being an insignificant and faltering licence partner to becoming an Operator in the United Kingdom, Yemen and Kurdistan. When the company made a comeback on the Norwegian shelf in 2000, oil production had increased from barely 900 barrels per day to almost 30,000, whilst the company’s value on the stock market later rose to almost NOK 17 billion. Berge Gerdt Larsen turned DNO into one of the stock market's most celebrated and reviled companies. What happened is an exciting part of the Norwegian oil story and developed into an adventure for thousands of Norwegian shareholders.

October 1995: Berge Gerdt Larsen on his way out to inspect "SS Petrolia” which was anchored in Scotland. (Photo: Private)