Oil & Gas Major Statoil Changes Name to 'Equinor'

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--European oil and gas giant Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO) is to rename the company "Equinor" to reflect its shift to becoming a cleaner energy company.

The company's board of directors, the Norwegian government--its major shareholder--and five workers' unions have supported the move. The company said that Equinor is formed by combining "equi," the starting point for words like equal, equality and equilibrium, and "nor," representing its Norwegian roots.

"For us, this is a historic day," explained Statoil President and Chief Executive Officer Eldar Sætre. "Statoil has for almost 50 years served us well. Looking towards the next 50 years, reflecting on the global energy transition and how we are developing as a broad energy company, it has become natural to change our name. The name Equinor captures our heritage and values, and what we aim to be in the future. We are a values-based company, and equality describes how we want to approach people and the societies where we operate. The Norwegian continental shelf will remain the backbone of our company, and we will use our Norwegian heritage in our positioning as we continue growing internationally within both oil, gas and renewable energy."

Statoil's goal is to invest 15-20% of its total capital expenditures in new energy solutions by 2030. Industrial Info has been tracking the company's major renewable energy investments over the past year. These include a deal struck last year with U.K. energy company SSE plc (Perth, Scotland) to develop three offshore windfarms with a combined generating capacity of 3,600 megawatts (MW). The windfarms make up three of the four Dogger Bank offshore projects--Dogger Bank Creyke Beck A, Dogger Bank Creyke Beck B and Dogger Bank Teesside A--and each has a generating capacity of 1,200 MW. The company is also behind the world's first floating offshore windfarm, the 30 MW Hywind project, which is located in deep waters 25 kilometres (km) offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. First power was generated there last October. For additional information, see September 11, 2017, article--Statoil and SSE Team Up for World's Largest Windfarm Project and October 23, 2017 article--First Floating Offshore Windfarm Powers Up in Scotland.

Statoil is not the only European company changing its name to reflect a changing energy landscape. Last year, Europe's largest renewable energy company, DONG Energy A/S (Fredericia, Denmark)---which stood for Dansk Olie og Naturgas (Danish Oil and Natural Gas)--changed its name to Ørsted. The move took place following the sale of its oil and gas business and its changed focus to renewable energy. For additional information, see October 5, 2017, article--DONG Going 100% Green, Changing Name to Ørsted.

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