Norwegian government officials yesterday urged the privatisation of the country's largest enterprise, oil company Statoil. On the first day of the Offshore Northern Seas conference, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said a minority privatisation of Statoil would add new resources and give the company access to capital markets in a new way.

Statoil, which has an operation in Ireland and whose oil fields pump about 3.2 million barrels per day of oil, makes Norway one of the world's top three exporters and the seventh largest producer. It earned a record 16.83 billion Norwegian krona (€2.09 billion) before tax in the first half.