Norway is shrinking divestment by its sovereign wealth fund of equity holdings in oil and gas companies (OGJ Online, Nov. 17, 2017).
The program, implemented to lower the country’s exposure to oil-price risk, has applied to companies in a category labeled “exploration and production” in a stock-exchange index.
The category included refining and marketing.
The index owner this year redistributed “exploration and production” companies into two new categories: “oil: crude production” and “oil refining and marketing.”
The Finance Ministry on Oct. 1 specified that divestment by the Global Pension Fund Global (GPFG) applies only to the former category.
The move apparently excludes integrated oil and gas companies from divestment.
The ministry said 95 companies were in the “crude: oil producer” category in mid-September, representing 0.8% of the GPFG’s benchmark for equities.
When the original program was adopted, the fund’s oil and gas equities represented about 4% of its holdings.
The ministry said phaseout of investment in the newly narrowed category “will be made gradually over time.”
