May 31
2010

As AFP reports, experts agree natural gas may be the best replacement for Norway once its large oil reserves run out.

Norway’s energy prospects may lie in natural gas according to a report by AFP.

As the country considers a future when its wealth of oil dries up, Norway will need to explore its options. Rune Bjoernson of Statoil told AFP that natural gas will be part of an energy solution for Norway. State-owned Staoil is among the world’s largest oil and gas producers and second only to Russia’s Gazprom in natural gas exports.

The world’s largest offshore reserve of natural gas lies beneath the Barents Sea. Russia and Norway recently agreed on border delimitations beneath the sea, which opens up potential for exploration in the area.

According to the article, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says global energy demand will be 40 percent higher in 2030 than in 2007, electricity demand will grow 76 percent and natural gas 42 percent.

-There is lots and lots of natural gas in the world and going forward it is going to be relatively cheap to produce, said Oestein Noreng, a professor of petroleum economics and management at the BI Norwegian School of Management in the article.

-Natural gas is also much cleaner than oil and coal. I think it has a bright future”.

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May 29
2010

Acts from 25 countries are preparing to take part in the grand final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, taking place later in Norway’s capital Oslo.

Bookmakers have made Azerbaijan favourite to win the contest.

Their chosen act, Safura, will open Saturday’s show with her song Drip Drop.

Because the phone vote that decides the winner opens at the beginning of the show, it is thought the 17-year-old may have an advantage over her fellow contestants.

More than 125 million watched last year’s competition in Moscow, when Norwegian violinist Alexander Rybak took home the trophy with a record 387 points.

The economic downturn has hit this year hard, though, with several countries having to pull out of the event because they could not afford to take part.

Behind-the-scenes at Eurovision

Radio listeners, meanwhile, can hear Ken Bruce report on proceedings on BBC Radio Two from 2000 BST.

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May 24
2010

The Norwegian capital braces for the Eurovision extravaganza.

It is that time of the year again: On Saturday, up to 200 million watchers will tune in to the Eurovision Song Contest, an audience only matched by international sporting events.

Norway reclaimed northwest Europe’s supremacy last year with Alexander Rybak’s “Fairytale,” after a decade of chronic humiliation by Eastern Europe; pundits predict that Oslo is now well-placed to host the contest twice in a row.

Israel will be represented by Harel Skaat, who catapulted to fame after he was voted runner up in the 2004 Kochav Nolad (A Star Is Born) television contest.

For its critics the competition has come to embody the ongoing prevalence of parochial insularism and entrenched prejudices, but for our Oslo hosts the event is a chance to reach out to global viewers between each pop entry with a Technicolor display of the Norwegian dream: In addition to shots filmed across Europe – a first for the competition – expect the predictable mix of magnificent fjords, flag-flying wooden churches, cycling monarchs, Munch paintings, wild salmon, grinning Samis and peach-skinned Vikings.

Unfortunately this marketing smorgasbord isn’t likely to do much justice to Oslo as a vibrant destination, its cool credentials being overshadowed by the breathtaking beauty of the Norwegian countryside. Mikko Karhu, a seasoned Eurovision commentator, looks back at Finland hosting the contest with amusement. “The interlude videos… were well made. However they offered a narrow perspective on Finland. The countryside was more present than [Helsinki life].”

A fjord overdose would certainly be a lapse of judgment: Norwegians would better use their 20 or so TV slots to issue a killer statement about Oslo as a style destination and dispel jokes made by sassy Danish and Swedish neighbors about Norway’s redneck demeanor.

The recent transformation of the Norwegian capital has been impressive. The highlight of 2008 was the opening of the new opera house (Operahuset), a behemoth of contemporary architecture designed by local practice Snøhetta. It kick-started Fjord City, a waterfront development in Tjuvholmen’s reclaimed dockyards.

The opera was widely acknowledged as a groundbreaking addition to a city prone until then to quaint, provincial architecture. Not that it was a painful investment: With $500 billion in its sovereign fund, Norway drips oil money out of every pore and could win a skyscraper face-off with Dubai hands down. The new opera came in the footsteps of smaller new landmarks such as the Design and Architecture Center (DogA) but it is projects to come that are making Oslo the valedictorian of the starchitecture league tables, including a waterfront building designed by Renzo Piano for the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.

As grand as it sounds there is more to Oslo than this ostentatious display of oil money confidence: From fashion to design, food and art, the city is slowly finding its niche and exporting a distinctive identity, with understated modesty. The small artist-run spaces, designer bars and independent stores slowly filling fashionable Grünerløkka and Kampen are a testament to this newly found creativity. Turning this grassroots energy into a viable industry is a slow process, and the city’s booming economy is not helping.

For Andreas Engesvik, an acclaimed product designer, “The design scene is emerging, but we are way behind Stockholm and Copenhagen. Government understanding of design is absent. We must run out of oil before things start to move.”

The fashion industry has moved from frumpy, outdoorsy sportswear – the legacy of a mountainous nation – to a more urban outlook embracing Oslo’s youthful energy and its ethnic diversity. Olso Fashion Week, still small by the standards of Copenhagen’s, runs twice a year and is making a name for itself as the propeller of new labels, many of which are Fairtrade. This is certainly a paradox for an oil rich nation but Oslo thrives on eco-friendliness and carbon neutrality; its public City Bike scheme has been a roaring success since its inception in 2002, way before Paris made headlines with its Vélib.

This Nordic trend exports itself well and has become the latest fad for the anti-cupcake brigade of Londoners and New Yorkers in search of healthy, good-skinned longevity. Expectedly summer in Oslo is a smorgasbord of such power foods, both familiar and friendly to Israeli palates: salmon, herring, berries, pickles, rye bread, the exotic addition of moose and reindeer meat cuts, washed down with pear cider.

Oslo is a worldly capital that brokers Nobel Prizes and peace accords; accordingly it takes its soft power seriously. Israeli visitors can be excused to smirk with incredulity at Nordic artists and activists making grand statements about the Middle East from the safe realms of the Oslo Fjord. Love it or hate it, there is something Miss Worldly about Oslo – the city is safe, modest, good-natured, good-intentioned, diverse, egalitarian and caring, an achingly perfect fairy tale in fact as if it had been designed for a Eurovision panel and subject to 12 points approval.

All this makes Oslo and Osloites endearing, at least during summer, from the model looks of the city’s inhabitants to ubiquitous Nordic design and its stylish, effortless embrace of essentialist, functional living.

Sadly, it is not the cheapest place around – a glass of wine can be a staggering $20 (surely a country that rich should subsidize visitors) – although warm summer days and the midnight sun bring wallet-friendlier alternatives, from camping on the outskirts of the city (Oslo is surrounded by fjords and forests) to smørbrød (open sandwiches) on sunny terraces, market picnics by the harbor and late nights in Vigeland Sculpture Park.

As the Eurovision Song Contest draws to a close and the next host country looks forward to greeting an army of screaming fans, Oslo is approaching Sankhansaften (midsummer celebrations on 23 June), the best time to visit. A veteran Eurovision correspondent sums up the chances of a Nordic double bill with acute insight, “This year’s successes will be Germany, Denmark or Norway again.”

Time for a Eurovision Center by a star architect!

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May 21
2010

Written by a Korean, in the JoongAng Daily, here is an excerpt of observations by a person seeing Norway for the first time:

“My journey to the fjords started from Oslo Central Station, not from Bergen, because I wanted to try “Norway in a Nutshell,” which is Norway’s most popular tour package. Feel free to start your journey from other cities such as Bergen.

The rail trip offers a unique view of the country. “You can see two different seasons by using this tour program around this time,” said Wenche Berger, a producer and marketing manager at Norwegian State Railway. During the four-hour, 42-minute ride from Oslo to Myrdal, the trip itself was dynamic and had many things to offer. Fluffy lambs resting near white and yellow flowers atop green grass suddenly give way to thick forest with branches reaching into the skies.

As the trip reaches its halfway point, it’s a good idea to pop some gum in your mouth – the tracks rise to 800 meters (2,600 feet) above sea level. By the time the train reached Finse, the highest train station in Norway at 1,222 meters above sea level, everything was covered in snow. We were above the treeline, so the woods were gone, and the sun beat down on the white snow, reflecting a pure, painful light.

It’s easy to see why George Lucas chose Finse as the location for the ice planet Hoth in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” The empty, harsh landscape is enough to make any warm-blooded Earth mammal uneasy.

The train soon arrived at Myrdal, where we transferred to the Flamsbana Railway en route to Naerøy Fjord. About 60 minutes later, we came upon Flam, a tiny village whose name means “little place between steep mountains.”

At Flam, we hopped on a cruise ship for a trip up Naerøy fjord, a branch of Songne fjord, the largest of its kind in Norway, which was listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2005. Standing on the deck, all I could hear was the sound of rushing saltwater as the cruise ship cut through the narrow channel – along with, of course, the clicking of camera shutters. Clear and clean, the water offered a perfect reflection of the cliffs and forests that surrounded us, and even the clouds above.”

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May 3
2010

Mother’s Day is May 9 this year, and while it is traditionally a day spent focusing on our own family, Save the Children is asking you spend it thinking about how we can improve the lives of mothers and children all over the world.

Save the Children’s released this week their 11th annual Mothers’ Index, which ranks the best and worst places to be a mother. The Mothers’ Index is highlighted in Save the Children’s State of the World’s Mothers 2010 report, which examines the many ways women working on the front lines of health care are helping to save the lives of mothers, newborns and young children, and makes an urgent call to increase the number of doctors and midwives in the world’s poorest nations.

According to the index, mothers in Norway and Australia have it better than the rest of us, Afghanistan ranked at the bottom of the list of 160 countries, which included 43 developed nations and 117 in the developing world.

The index is based on an analysis of indicators of women’s and children’s health and well-being, and clearly illustrates that providing mothers with access to education, economic opportunities and health care gives mothers and their children the best chance to survive and thrive.

Among the top 10 best places to be a mother:

Norway ranks first
Australia
Iceland
Sweden
Denmark
New Zealand
Finland
the Netherlands
Belgium
Germany.

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May 2
2010

in $4.9 bln Vale deal

Betting on a boom in aluminum demand, Norwegian producer Hydro announced on Sunday a $4.9 billion purchase of Brazilian mining giant Vale’s aluminum activities, securing bauxite supplies to last it for a century.

Norway’s biggest ever foreign acquisition will give Norsk Hydro ASA (NHY.OL) a leading Brazilian bauxite mine and the world’s biggest alumina refinery among other assets in Brazil.

Vale SA (VALE5.SA), the world’s largest iron ore miner and a leader in nickel, will get $1.1 billion in cash and a 22 percent stake in Hydro, a Norwegian firm whose main business has been aluminum smelters and production of aluminum products.

The deal, which should be closed by the end of 2010, values Vale’s stake in Hydro at $3.1 billion and includes $700 million in debts assumed by the Norwegian company.

“The acquisition in Brazil will secure raw materials for more than a hundred years of aluminum production,” Hydro Chief Executive Svein Richard Brandtzaeg told reporters. “This gives the entire company greater strength and makes us more robust.”

Hydro said industry surveys showed that demand for aluminum would grow by 76 percent between 2010-2020 and that gaining better access to bauxite and alumina would help Hydro expand.

Hydro said it has always been dependent on buying the materials to make aluminum, such as bauxite and alumina.

BASE FOR EXPANSION

“This is the right strategic decision, Hydro had been short in bauxite and alumina,” said DnB NOR analyst Gudmund Halle Isfeldt. “They could more easily continue expanding their production base within aluminum smelting.”

Isfeldt said Hydro could, for example, over time expand its just-opened Qatalum aluminum smelter in Qatar, if they gain more low-priced natural gas for this energy-intensive industry.

The deal gives Vale cash and exposure to the entire aluminum value chain — from bauxite to aluminum products, Vale’s Executive Vice President Tito Martins told Reuters.

“Vale will benefit from integrating its resources in an organization with both upstream and downstream activities and we expect to grow more in this new organization than we would have independently,” said Martins, in Oslo for the announcement.

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