Oil Minister Tord Lien said the state budget will give petroleum research 100 million NOK extra to be used to conduct research on petroleum engineering.
The money will come in a package of measures to ensure competence and employment in an industry that is experiencing tough times.
This should be included in the Research Council program for 2020 council said in a statement. The additional allocation of 100 million NOK is equal to the supplements the program received last year.
– This money is important so that new technologies be developed and made quickly usable on the Norwegian shelf, says CEO Hallén of the Research Council.
– New technology and new solutions can make the Norwegian petroleum industry more energy efficient and produce lower production costs.
Lien justifies the additional funds stating that last year’s package was successful and no government wants to repeat the problems in the oil industry.
– I saw for a while if we had taken some hits in the industry, but the industry has responded very well. This ensures added value, and it ensures that the industry can keep people in jobs, said the oil minister to the newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad.
He says two-thirds of the money ends up in in Rogaland and Hordaland, which are the counties most affected by the oil slump.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
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