/us-norway-election-oil

Future of oil takes center stage in Norwegian election
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-election-oil/future-of-oil-takes-center-stage-in-norwegian-election-idUSKCN1BB1XC

The future of Norway’s oil sector is emerging as a key issue for voters in a Sept. 11 parliamentary election, nowhere more so than in the oil capital of Stavanger.

The right-wing bloc of Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg is neck-and-neck in opinion polls with an opposition grouping led by Jonas Gahr Stoere’s Labour.

Should neither secure a majority, the smaller Green party - which pledges to stop oil exploration and phase out production within 15 years - could become kingmakers.

There is little chance of the Greens being able to call time on Norway’s number one industry, which all major parties back to the hilt, accounts for half of national exports and employs over 180,000 people.

But they have been gradually gathering support over the past four years and are polling at about 5 percent of the vote, underlining changes in Norwegian society and divisions over the future of oil.

Should they hold the balance of power, they could seek to force compromises to trim the oil industry’s ambitions, with environmentalists in recent months focusing on the need to limit oil companies’ expansion in the Arctic.