WATCHING THE WORLD 'SUGGESTIONS' FOR STATOIL

British Petroleum Co. plc and Shell Transport & Trading slipped inevitably into the position of the most unpopular companies in Britain after announcing sharply higher earnings for the third quarter.

It seems that even a decade of exposure to Mrs. Thatcher's free enterprise culture has not prepared the average gasoline-buying Briton for the near quadrupling of profits by BP and a 68% rise in net income for Shell.

EXPLAINING THE PROFITS

Efforts to explain the stock profit element in the results had little effect. So the two companies were flooded with media and political criticism based on the premise that the big jump in third quarter income was generated by profiteering in the sensitive retail gasoline market.

When beneficial effects of revaluing stocks are removed, results show that lower margins in the refining/marketing and petrochemical sectors failed to offset higher returns in the upstream business, a fact that was submerged by the size of the increase in the companies' overall profits.

Not all European countries are so sensitive about oil company profits. Across the North Sea, Norway's state owned Den norkse stats oljeselskap AS reported a rise in third quarter profits to 9.2 billion kroner ($1.6 billion) this year from 5.6 billion kroner ($972 million) in 1989.

However, Norwegians are not so concerned about how much money Statoil has made but with the more controversial question of how it will be spent.

Since the crude oil price collapse of 1986 and the massive Mongstad refinery cost overrun, Statoil has undergone extensive management reorganization and cost cutting. The company has started to expand from its traditional North Sea base into worldwide exploration and production, which will require substantial outlays.

But the company may be maneuvered into a new investment strategy following the fall of the Conservative led coalition and its replacement with a Labor administration led by the former prime minister, Mrs. Gro Harlem Bruntland.

In her inauguration speech, Norway's new leader suggested that Statoil might like to stimulate the Norwegian economy by taking minority interests in smaller Norwegian companies outside the oil sector that are hindered by lack of a stable capital base.

The new administration is anxious to tackle higher than acceptable levels of unemployment but lacks an alternative means to invest in local companies. Norwegians in general are concerned that the unhealthy state of many companies makes them prime takeover targets-and especially vulnerable to raids across the border from Swedish groups.

STATOIL: A FINANCIAL ENGINE

Norway's new energy minister, Finn Kristensen, has raised the prospect of Statoil becoming the financial engine for reviving Norwegian industry, although he emphasizes that Statoil will not be forced into nonoil investments and certainly will not have to make any investment that does not look a sound proposition.

However, when the only shareholder starts to make "suggestions" it will be a very brave Statoil board that turns a deaf ear.