Norway

Last December we joked that the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund had responded to sinking returns and withdrawals required to fund budget deficits by allocating another $130 billion in assets to what appeared to be an already massively overpriced equity bubble in return for an extra 40bps of "expected average annual real returns" (see: Norway Buying $130 Billion In Global Equities As Sovereign Wealth Fund Continues To Bleed Cash).  The extra equity purchases pushed the fund's total equity allocation to a staggering 70% of their $860 billion in assets under management.

Last December we joked that the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund had responded to sinking returns and withdrawals required to fund budget deficits by allocating another $130 billion in assets to what appeared to be an already massively overpriced equity bubble in return for an extra 40bps of "expected average annual real returns." (see: Norway Buying $130 Billion In Global Equities As Sovereign Wealth Fund Continues To Bleed Cash).  The extra equity purchases pushed the fund's total equity allocation to a staggering 70% of their $860 billion in assets under management. 

Submitted by Nick Kamran – Letters from Norway

Decision Season

With Parliamentary elections looming, more Norwegians than usual are asking themselves the tough questions. It is now apparent that the slump in oil is not a temporary one. What will the country do now? Time for the lottery winner, after receiving the last annuity, to get a job before burning out the savings. Many are looking towards the sea, fishing and exploiting underwater natural resources. Others are looking to blast open the mountains to do the same.

Authored by Zainab Calcuttawala via OilPrice.com,

Norway’s coast guard has removed Greenpeace protestors from a safety zone near Statoil drilling operations in the Korpfjell field of the Barents Sea, according to a new report in the Maritime Executive.

The protestors used kayaks to infiltrate a 500-meter exclusion zone around the Songa Enabler on Thursday in order to attach a large globe to the rig. On it was a statement from environmentalists calling on Norway to end its drilling in the Arctic.

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Stratgeic Culture Foundation,

Much has been said about NATO reinforcements in the Baltic States and Poland perceived in Moscow as provocative actions undermining security in Europe, while very little has been said about gradual but steady militarization of Scandinavia. The theme does not hit headlines and it is not in focus of public discourse but one step is taken after another to turn the region into a springboard for staging offensive actions against Russia.