Norway’s premier has challenged Europe to decide whether it is safer to buy gas from the US and the Gulf than from the Arctic reserves of one of its closest allies, as Oslo presses Brussels to ditch its drilling ban in the High North.
Jonas Gahr Støre said the EU’s stance against new oil, coal and gas extraction in the region was “not informed”, arguing that Europe already relied on gas from the Arctic after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“We increased our gas exports to Europe, to the EU, when the war in Ukraine broke out, and all of that increase came from the Arctic. It was LNG from Hammerfest,” he told the FT, referring to a town more than 400km north of the polar circle where Equinor restarted its liquefied natural gas plant in 2022 after a long shutdown following a fire.