 Good afternoon everybody welcome we're we're delighted to have you here and I'm a special personal pride to be able to welcome Helga Lund now of course there's a very I'm a very visceral feeling here you know I'm a Norwegian you know but now my family was too poor and had to leave before we discovered oil in the North Sea so they came as poor little dirt farmers but we went back and it's a great great joy to see how what a fabulous job Norway has done with this patrimony and and I give great credit to start oil and especially to Helga Lund for this it I did not realize this until just a few minutes ago that Helga is the longest-serving CEO of a major oil company in the world now I don't know when you started Helga you look like you're 28 now I mean I can't quite figure out the math here but but having you know a long career in business not that but still to get to the top with with start oil and to lead such a fine company because it's a you know it's a company that's in in the oil and gas business but lives in the context of enormously high expectations for corporate social responsibility not just for how the company treats its employees and lives in its neighborhood but the way in which it serves as an engine for progressive values inside Norwegian society and and it's been really remarkable to see how well they've done it's a it's a role model you know this is a state-owned oil company but it operates with the efficiency of the private sector and yet brings to its enterprise a very deep commitment to again doing the very best for the people of Norway and Helga has been at the helm for 10 years has led it from victory to victory and fortunately you know like like Leif Erikson discovered oil in North America and he's pumping like crazy in the Bakken field so we're very happy to help that you're helping us with our recovery Helga and we're delighted that you're willing to be with us this afternoon to share your insights into the challenges that the start oil faces this is a complex industry it's an industry with enormous cross-cutting pressures and it all lands squarely on the shoulders of the CEO and so we're going to learn a lot this afternoon would you please with your applause welcome Helga Lund we're good afternoon and thank you John for these very kind words and thank you for not putting more pressure on me it's really a pleasure being here and thank also to CICS for hosting this event and also congratulations with the new building it's even nicer than the new district office that we have in Oslo so that's that's good actually Washington has always been one of my favorite cities for how it looks but also for what it is and a few years back I appointed my closest advisor to head up and actually open the startle office in Washington and that was Paul Eitrim and I think some of you know him and I told him you better make up your mind very quickly otherwise I take the position myself and it seems interesting to note that Washington has always been and remains to be at the center of many of the most important global issues very security defense trade development or finance but until recently I would not have put energy on that list however given the renaissance of the oil and gas industry in in North America it is very clear to all of us I think now that decisions made here is impacting not on the North America oil and gas and energy policies but I think also on the global arena so I wanted today to try to structure my thoughts in three different teams the first is the changing energy landscape with particular emphasis on what is going on in the oil and gas industry and what we do to remain competitive in in all the changes secondly I'll try to illustrate how important North America and particularly the US now is for status further development moving forward and the final team which I think also connects the dots from the two first is about how we both as a company but also as an industry respond to the challenges that we are faced with including the topics of climate change and also community engagement as onshore activities come much closer to really where people people live these teams in my opinion are key to secure the long-term legitimacy of this industry which I will come back to first a few words about start oil we are firmly rooted in Norway that is represent still roughly 60% of our overall global production which is which currently runs around 2 million barrels per day and I think it's fair to say that Norway remains the foundation of our business but also I think to a large extent our identity as a company we are actually the biggest offshore operator in the world and I think you very notably these days we're also the second largest gas supplier to Europe we have activities in 35 countries in Europe, Norway, Russia, Azerbaijan, the UK and so on and so forth we are based in Algeria, Libya, Angola and Nigeria just made huge gas discoveries in Tanzania in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, the US and finally also Canada and they are in the process of building some long-term positions also in exploration in Asia. I think it's fair to note that this list hides in many way both diversity and focus we are represented in conventional offshore operations but also increasingly also onshore particularly here in the US but our focus is really on being a technology focused upstream company so I think we are one of the bigger oil and gas companies that are very very shallow in terms of refinery activities we actually only have two relatively small refineries in in Europe that's about that's about it. First on the development of the oil and gas industry and the first point I make is that the last decade the oil price has almost tripled from roughly 30 to around 110 today roughly but due to escalating investments increased costs more complexity and higher risks return on capital from companies in Stuttgart's peer groups i.e. the big oil and gas companies of the world has actually been reduced by one-third or the last decade so I think it's fair to say that currently the business model is not working properly. So the competitiveness of our industry simply must improve we need to be much more disciplined in the way we employ capital and I think we need to find new ways of working so that we are slimmer and more efficient in the way we attack the business challenges that we are working on. The second point would be that some people tend to think that oil and natural gas could and should be replaced by renewable and more climate friendly sources of energy. To those I say with the International Energy Agency that even in a low-carbon society the world needs our products. In their two degrees scenario the IEA says oil consumption will be roughly at today's level and natural gas must and will increase significantly from the level that we see today. Most notably to replace cold in the electricity production and until 2035 the industry need to replace something like four times the current Saudi Arabia production in oil and more than 10 times the current production annual production of gas or Statoil or Norway that is. And I think if you look at the challenges that the industry have today in terms of bringing forward new supply at the cost efficient way I think most of you will agree that this is a formidable challenge not only for business but I think also for the society. The industry must remain competitive in the race for capital and talent to be able to deliver on our mission to bring light heating and transportation to the world. And I think to be a reliable source for economic growth to the world including the US. Society IEA the politicians in this case must incentivize the right decisions and to create a level playing field to addressing both the needs for energy but also for less CO2 in the energy production. To succeed in this environment Statoil has put in place a very focused strategy for high value growth for increasing efficiency both in terms of cost and capital and also to improve capital discipline to be able to return adequate to shareholders as we move forward. And our response have been primarily in four areas. The first one is to revitalize Norwegian continental shelf. And most of you that follow the oil and gas industry closely you know that the few years back most thought that the oil and gas industry in Norway will just decline and rapidly sort of go into non-existence that has not happened. And the last few years we have made major discoveries even in the most mature areas that has prolonged the life of Norwegian continental shelf in many decades. The second part of our strategy was to re-energize our exploration efforts which we did 10 years back. And the last few years we have been I think the best oil and gas company in the world in terms of identifying finding new conventional oil and gas resources. We have also modernized our gas portfolio. We have moved away from the oil-linked gas contracts that the European gas infrastructure was built on back 20 years into gas to gas and market-based contracts. And that has been I think very important and we have also built or are in the process of building a quite solid gas business not only in Europe but also in the US where we have a big position in particularly in Marcellus. And that is really the fourth topic of our strategy to continue to build our unconventional business because we simply believe that will be an important part of long-term energy supply. That really brings me to the topic about the importance of North America for start oil. I think we have shown some commitment. We have invested billions of dollars over the last few years in the US particularly. We have more than 2,000 people now employed here. And I don't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but the starter was named by the Progressive Policy Institute as the third most important overseas investor in the US energy sector over the two previous years. And North America already provides roughly 15% of the total production of start oil globally. We actually started back in 1987, but that was more marketing and trading activities. We took our first real position offshore Girl for Mexico in 2004. And there are now represented onshore in Girl for Mexico, in Canada, predominantly offshore but also with a small oil sands position. As we have proven, I think, in our 40 years with Norwegian operations, safety always comes first and is essential to our business and our commitments and to our employees and the communities in which we operate. And one of the most important things we have learned throughout these four decades is that complacency and arrogancy is really the most important enemy you have in terms of moving forward and improving day by day in the safety field. And I think this is a general lesson for companies, but it's even more important in the field of safety, because every day is a new day and you have risks that you need to handle. In Girl for Mexico, we have a number of high-quality fields being developed by our partners. Seven, that is. We have also now started a quite comprehensive drilling program, Stuttall operated, and we were setting the new Martin well a few weeks back and throughout this decade at the back end of this decade, Girl for Mexico will be one of the most important offshore regions in Stuttall. Offshore Canada, we have also built over the last few years quite significant exploration positions and we got a large encouragement last year, where we actually outside the newfoundland made the biggest offshore oil discovery last year and a few weeks back, we decided to move a rig from Norway now to accelerate the drilling program outside Canada over the next few years. That brings me to onshore the US, where we are present in Marcellus. We entered that area in 2008 in a joint venture with Chesapeake. Subsequently, we entered Eagle Ford with Talisman in 2010 and in 2011, we acquired Brigham Exploration to move into a quite significant position in Bakken in North Dakota. I think Bakken Field is named after a former Norwegian farmer called Otto Bakken, so I think the circles are now closed. Of course, we were new to onshore operations and unconventional operations, but we feel that we have the capability to be a competitive player. That has a lot to do with operating practices, I think, our values and the way we use technology and with a particular emphasis on getting as much as possible out of the fields where we operate. That brings me to my third and final theme of the day and the way we work and how I think our industry must face the new challenges of the future. The challenge of climate change is, of course, global. But globally, the big problem of today is that it's too much CO2 and actually too little politics. But while waiting for effective global measures, local alternatives, how to be implemented and since I'm in Washington, let me use the US onshore as an illustrative examples. Operatorships in the three main US onshore place give us the opportunity to apply our values in the field. And at Stuttgart, we say that how we do things is as important as what we do. And we recognize that there have been concerns about air, water, climate impacts or shale gas and tight oil development. And we are committed to work with peers, with our peers, with government and other stakeholders to develop robust and appropriate standards and best practices throughout our operations. In our view, a number of states have put in place good and well thought through regulations for unconventional resource development. And we believe that regulations should reflect and cater to local conditions because population density and issues related to water availability will tend to differ, for instance, between Texas and Pennsylvania. And having said that, we can also see that there are areas in which some common best practices can be applied. We truly believe in the industry working with governments, with civil society and with the scientific community to ensure that these resources are developed in a responsible and sustainable way. Let's take our operations in North Dakota as an example, how we are trying to implement these principles into practice. In the bucket, a lack of infrastructure for evacuating associated gas means we have to find innovative ways to minimize flaring and methane emissions. We have invested significantly over the last few years in building our own pipelines, 700 miles of pipeline in North Dakota to support our operations, including natural gas gathering system as well as pipes to carry water and produced oil. We work closely with infrastructure providers and processors to assist with future planning. We prioritize the use of leading well-head technology and techniques to limit the impact of our operations. And our rig fleet is now entirely converted to biofuel application and these systems actually replace up to 60 percent of the diesel with natural gas. As far as we can, we want to use gas rather than diesel to heat our fracturing fluids and our equipment. And we continue to innovate, which is important. We are evaluating several smaller scale technological pilots like our partnerships with GE or the use of compressed natural gas through the CNG in a box application as well as local micro generation of electricity to further increase efficiency and reduced waste and emissions too. We even feel our joint efforts have been recognized locally, perhaps also from time to time in DC. We are proud of the progress that we have made, but we recognize also that there are still lots of work to be done. Commercial scale gas and title is still in its infancy and there are many challenges from a business perspective, a social perspective, and also from an environmental perspective. And successfully tackling these challenges will require more than the efforts of a single company, even an entire industry. Some progress has already been made. The state of North Dakota, for example, has an effective regulatory regime in place and the value of the gas produced incentivized constructing gathering system as quickly as economically and technically feasible. And Stuttall is working actively with the government in North Dakota. We contribute to the North Dakota Petroleum Council Flaring Task Force, for example, and are working hard to meet the Flaring Reduction targets put forward at the end of January. But more is definitely needed. States can do more encouraging the increased use of natural gas locally, for example, by giving companies flexibility to use natural gas to fuel their operations through drilling rigs and on site natural gas generators for electricity generation. More importantly, both the states and the federal government can help by streamlining permitting processes to remove red tape to enable infrastructure build out faster. We need predictable and transparent processes for applications, as well as a more efficient coordination between federal and state agency on permitting right away. I'm glad to see that the Department of Energy has prioritized the issue of infrastructure in its first quadranil energy review. And we look forward to working with the DOE on this important issue. By enabling and encouraging the build out of infrastructure for both oil and natural gas, particularly in the Bakken and on the Marcellus, policymakers will enable the traditional demand centers of the country better access to these resources. This would allow taking advantage of abundant natural gas as you seek to address the emissions intensity of your power fleet. As I've said, the teams I reflected up on today are global. So let me conclude by combining some global and local perspectives to it. In the world, 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity and 2.6 billion lack of clean cooking facilities. And according to Wall Street Journal, at least 15 million Americans now live one mile of an oil or a gas well. And millions more live along the rail lines that depend on to transport crude oil from these fields. These are examples of how our industry is entering new ground and territories, meeting new stakeholders, new expectations and also new requirements. I could add to the list the discussions around fracking, use of chemical fluids, water contamination and also methane leakage that I already talked about. And people care about what we do because what we do really matters. Our product matters, how the impact society matters. So people should really care. And again, examples where our industry must be able to build trust with society through engagement. My simple recipe for engaging with society is linked to three words in conclusion. Transparency. In many ways, this is the new currency for trust. Secondly, dialogue. The need to engage with all stakeholders, whether you agree or not, and finally responsibility. That means continually striving to improve our own operating environment. As a company, we are proud of the important and growing role that the US plays in Stuttgart's global strategy and ambitions. We know there is still more to do, both from industry and from government, as the unconventional revolution continues to unfold. And we look forward to continue to be a constructive player here in the US, but also in a broader context in the energy fields. And by that, thank you. Helga, thank you very much for those comments. And before we open it up to the audience, I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask you a few questions. One of the reasons why we do events like this is we firmly believe that global industry leaders such as yourself have a lot of important perspectives that can help a Washington policymaking audience both think about how we deal with international energy policy issues, but also, as you said, the vast array of domestic energy policy issues that we're dealing with today. So I thought if I might maybe just start with something a little bit further afield and then we'll come back to North America. Obviously heard about the complex challenge of managing a global portfolio and a lot of risk out there. One of the things that is a predominant focus of conversation right now here in Washington is what's happening in sort of the Russia-Ukraine-Europe context. And I bring that up for starters because I think it is something that is certainly a topic on everybody's mind these days and something that Statoil as a company has a perspective on, right? You said second largest supplier of gas to Europe. Obviously also have interests in Russia, but then also have interest in growing interest in North America as well. What kind of perspective do you bring to sort of the geopolitical challenges that we face, you know, sort of in that part of the world and how do you as a company think about sort of addressing or even engaging in those topics that obviously are sort of a huge issue vis-a-vis sort of government-to-government relationships, but certainly also have sort of private sector and large sort of energy components to it as well. So actually during my 10 years I have started to think more and more about the oil and gas companies, not so much oil and gas companies, but risk management institutions because that is really what we do every day in terms of technology, safety, the regulatory environment, geopolitics and so on and so forth. So really engaged with all the risks that are associated oil and gas companies is critical including geopolitics. And I think the evidence of this is clearly that you can almost see on the oil price you know the geopolitical risks that where that are for the time being. In terms of the current issue in Ukraine and the gas markets, if I comment on that first I think as we see it in the short term there's no problem with gas applied to Europe in the sense that there have been a very mild winter, the storage is full. So in the short term there are no real issues about supply. Medium term you know the levers that you can pull is really to run down storage. You could potentially if some of the gas from Russia can be rewrote outside Ukraine, Holland can probably add some more nor we can add some but not much. And then LNG of course Europe has to compete with other continents of the world to attract more LNG. In the longer term Europe is you know dependent on I think Russian gas as we see it and in any historic context they have also been a very reliable supplier I think even though there have been difficult moments there is no way that Stuttall and Norway over the longer term can replace a fallout for instance on Russian gas. Maybe turning again to sort of the North American perspective and another issue that's been something we've been dealing a lot with over the last several weeks as you know just several hours south of here there was sort of another crude by rail sort of safety incident where there was an accident again and it's not it's not new it's sort of but it's an issue that as you sort of mentioned as North America sort of comes to grips with all of the new supply that's coming online we're dealing with these issues about how to guarantee safety of product whether it's moving quite frankly by pipeline or by rail and how you sort of deal with those issues you all are you know a significant developer in the Bakken but also elsewhere around the country. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you're viewing the sort of policy discussion here about safety issues but then also you had you had brought up sort of infrastructure issues more generally how those are sort of being dealt with both on a policy side but also in enabling you to do business. Well I think my starting point is is the one that I mentioned in my introduction in the sense that I think now the oil and gas industry is gradually and with some speed actually moving much closer to where people live and offshore operations for instance are something different so we need to respond to the concerns of the society both in the way we the standards that we apply to our operations but I think also the way we engage and actually that we take seriously the concerns of the people around our activities also when it comes to transport and the starting point in my view must be that in every part of the business system safety comes first when you're working with hydrocarbons because there are explosives and that must be the starting point you can never compromise on on that. The way we think about it is that we use only the the highest standards rail cars. We employ independent inspectors that check on the quality on our cars and the operating systems that we are running and we are engaging with the industry and also with regulators in how we can further improve. The philosophy must be that every incident we have must be a source of new learning so that we can improve and improve and improve. That's the sort of philosophy that we have had offshore and in other part of our operations there should be no difference in this area in my view. And of course the unconventional and onshore activities in the US have expanded very very rapidly so I think that both the industry and regulators need to engage and accelerate also the way we communicate around this to make sure that we get more urgency but also that we learn quicker from each other so that we can employ best practices. I think this is a prominent area where there is absolutely in my view no downside in engaging even more within the companies and regulators. And sort of moving sort of downstream in the process you know one of the other major issues that we're dealing with here is you know obviously the United States is sort of surprised even though it's been about five or six years with the production surge that's happened here and so we are sort of on a daily basis grappling with what that means for us right what does it mean is it abundance is it more self-sufficiency what is it and what do we do with it right what is the smart strategic option for the United States both in foreign policy terms but in terms of the growth for economy. One of the big questions that we spend a lot of time here is what the policy should be around whether it's LNG exports or crude exports or even quite frankly product exports we have a sort of a discussion here after the sort of winter we've had on propane exports so the question is sort of how do you as somebody who is placing more and more of sort of your business focus within North America look at that issue as sort of a deterrent or an enabler of creating value which is sort of job number one for you creating value for the company and the investments that you've made here and how do you look at the way the United States has been exploring those exports issues. So my philosophical angle into this issue is really that I've always thought about the US as you know a real free market and I admire the way the US economy time and again are able to fight crisis and come back and be competitive and that is thought philosophy also that you know competition is always good and to have a free market is good or of course dealing with externalities but beyond that and regardless of whether it goes against our activity or not we have a principle of supporting free and open transparent markets and in terms of the export issue that would be the way we think about it too and we think it would be an advantage for the world for the US also to have a free open global market when it comes to oil and gas and actually on the oil side we think that this will stimulate supply and therefore eventually also be good for consumers so I know there are many details in this discussion but this is really the principles and the way we think about it so we would like to stimulate a debate or an open and free debate about how you can release some restrictions relative to oil export. You spent a little bit of time in your speech actually a good amount of time talking about sort of climate change and how climate change fits into sort of the perspective on oil and gas development there is sort of a perception here that Norway has achieved something that perhaps the United States hasn't which is the ability to be an oil and gas producer and also sort of an aggressive proponent of doing something coordinated about reducing emissions I'm going to go out on a limb and say we haven't achieved that here and so but you mentioned how that is actually sort of possible and practical that you can have a low carbon future that also includes oil and gas consumption and perhaps a significant increase in gas consumption over a certain time frame. How do you view the discussion about climate change both here and sort of internationally and you know as an enabler of your business what would you like to see happen on that on that file going forward? I think it's quite interesting to note that in Europe we set out with the ambition of having less CO2, more security or supply and more efficient sort of energy supply to stimulate competitiveness and actually a few years after we have not reached any of those objectives we have perhaps less security supply we have a very expensive energy system in Europe and we have more CO2 because the current ETS mechanism does not work and actually we have focused on the renewable shares and we have made good progress there but actually since we are importing coal from the from the US we are actually emitting more CO2 while in the US you have actually been able to reduce CO2 emissions the last few years not so much because of regulations because but due to the fact that you have an innovative industry that have been able to identify new techniques and technologies so that you can develop more gas that have replaced coal in the electricity sector so I think that is an interesting perspective and I also think underlining the important of having simple systems where politicians do not decide what technology that should win but rather create a system that is technology neutral that can can really stimulate the best innovator in terms of bringing forward responses it's interesting if we go to Norway that they introduced a CO2 tax in the 90s and now it's roughly 75 dollars per ton so I think it's the most expensive CO2 cost ever in the world and actually it's working because the oil and gas industry have implemented every action with the cost below 75 dollars and why is that because it's profitable so I think from Norway we have a proof that it works but of course it is not globally efficient if you only have that system in in one country so you really need a system that is more global to our to avoid carbon leakage and all of that and of course that is Dr's principle view that the best thing would be to have a global price on carbon and then industry will adapt and come forward with the best solution but realistically that is not it's not realistic that that that will happen anytime soon and therefore one has to I think work on other mechanisms too and there are you know emission standards and more regulatory approaches that I think can it can work but I think we need to work then with tools that minimize the carbon leakage issue recognizing that that that the CO2 and the climate issue is not national it is a global issue. Well we recognize we have about 15 minutes left I'd like to open it up to the floor for questions we only have two two kind of three rules here one is please wait for the microphone two is identify yourself and your affiliation both for Helga and sort of our audience and then three please put your question in the form of a question if we have a lot of them I'll group them up a little bit so right yes thank you Bill Murray from energy intelligence group thank you for your interesting fascinating speech one of the things you talked about a lot is how much offshore and what a large offshore producer you are and to get a little technical in terms of the oil production an increased increment of of oil production globally will be offshore in the next five to seven years they're very deep and as you know they're very complex is there some connection between some risk of all the new capital the looking at the spending and the capital of spending that's happening with the IOC's in the last five years is there some problem with bringing down the capex and capital investments in the next several years is there some threat that oil prices won't continue to stay stable well I think the cost of capital issue now in the industry is a major issue that we need to deal with in a much forceful much more for forceful way than we have done in the past my view that's a personal view and a subtle view therefore is that the oil and gas industry have been quite effective to deal with cost issues when the oil price is low and then we we work effectively one or two years to lower the cost and then oil price is back and then we're back on the same bandwagon as we were before so I think the industry needs to seek inspiration from other industries that have been under pressure from years and years perhaps decades and then you know trim their business systems their value chain in in a much more efficient way than than than than we have been able to do and and you know that how does how do oil companies work with the supplier industry why do we innovate and find new solutions every time you're going to do a new project instead of standardizing and so on and so forth I think that the current cost and capital challenge might also hamper and perhaps delay some of the most complex offshore fields and opportunities perhaps the Arctic is and the most extreme areas of Arctic could could be examples of that very maybe the industry certainly start oil would take a pause in terms of thinking about the most complex areas there are other reasons for that too but I think cost will be such an issue well I think one of the industries without being very specific about exactly where to learn but I think the car manufacturers you know have been under decades of pressure and have been extremely efficient in streamlining their their their their business system so I think we need to learn from the best one in this industry start or there is we need to learn from others but I think also we need to look beyond our industry to seek inspiration and ideas on how we can can do things better I actually believe that start will have has an advantage in this because we are pretty big operator at Norwegian continental shelf so when we make new initiatives for improvements we can implement them on up to 40 platforms at the same time so you can perhaps quicker get scale of the improvement activities that we are entertaining Bob Copekin independent consultant I was very impressed with Mungstad the carbon capture development that Norway spearheaded and I wonder what Stott oil reaction was when the labor led government canceled or discontinued that project and then how do you see doorways carbon capture development going forward is this an example of government deciding technology well I think carbon capture and storage potentially is a very important long term solution and the way we thought about Mungstad and the project there was that one of the challenges was actually to scale up the technology so that we could learn how the process worked so we started with the test center that could clean out or sequestrate roughly 100,000 tons per year and that the facilities and operations so we are learning testing to two new technologies and then the government decided to not for many reasons not go for the full scale facility now and we have acknowledged that and this is an area I think where we need to engage globally to again bring forward the best brain of the industry and related industry and the research institutions to to move forward and at least my thinking is that the biggest issue around there are many issues but the biggest issue right now is probably the cost issue you really need to find a technology that radically reduce the cost of carbon capture otherwise it will be a rich man's solution that that will not be applicable and and really be dealt with on a global basis which we need. Hello my name is Ellie Rostrom with Harvard University I have two quick questions the first is you describe Statoil as a technology focused company in the upstream sector I would love to hear your thoughts on your investment ambitions particularly in high-risk areas like Iraq or sub-Saharan Africa or even the Arctic like you mentioned. My other question I spent five years forecasting oil prices by far the most exciting job I've ever had and Statoil was one of my clients in fact and I would love to turn the table around and see in the next five years where do you see the oil price going and I'm more interested in your views directionally speaking not so much as a function of you know China is going to carry us through next year but more you know in five years are we in 120 are we higher or maybe we're lower. I guess what you're going to do with the second part of the question. Well actually one of the first statements I made to the media when I was appointed in 2004 was actually that I said that probably a monkey could predict oil prices better than a CEO and my oil traders and the analysts were not particularly happy with the CEO at that time but that's still my view but I can give you some thoughts. I mean if you look at the forward curve it seems that you know the market has decided that you know it will go down and I think that can very well happen but I think people can under estimate perhaps two issues one the more or less permanent future of political geopolitical risks and uncertainty and we tend to say once that is over then the oil price will decline and then there is a new issue a new issue a new issue. The second which I mean you're a hard word so you will know this much better but I think perhaps from time to time people are underestimating that the current cost challenges that we just spoke about in the oil and gas industry and I think you saw that in the first quarter reporting among the IOC's I think it was the 30th consecutive quarter where oil price oil production was actually declining despite the fact that we in this period have been had record high investments so this is something I maybe these two issues maybe could challenge that conventional wisdom now that the oil prices is going down on the technology we have a very interesting tax system in Norway so basically we pay 78 percent petroleum tax so that is and it has been stable for many many many years it has been a huge stimulator for technology and innovation because actually the tax man or the tax lady is actually paying 78 percent of the the R&D it has been a huge benefit for Norway I think as a society because you attract the best companies of the world to Norway you have extremely strong research institutions and I think an evidence of this is that I think Norway has the highest recovery rate of any country in the world and actually on the start of the operated field we have in the recovery rate now of more than 50% on our fields which I think to a large extent has to do with this so we really believe in technology as a business enabler but the oil and gas industry is in the same time in one way a very innovative industry and in another way we need to be quite careful because we're running with high risks so I think this step by step philosophy is also important and this is the way we think about Arctic for instance people talk about Arctic as Arctic in our view is many Arctic's because you have what we call workable Arctic that we now have in Norway in the northern part of Norway where we know currently run the snow white field for instance in the LNG field no ice I mean icebergs and then we did the next category is really you know what we called called you know stretch Arctic which is more difficult where you have icebergs and so on and so forth and then you have extreme Arctic where you have permanent ice that put a lot of new challenges of the industry where we really have to innovate in order to deliver and I think this is a good way of thinking about how we as an industry can work more and more difficult areas if you go step by step we had that discussion in Norway many years back since the sixties that we gradually moved activities up north as the industry were able to show the authorities that we actually could deliver on the standards that they they required maybe a long answer thank you I'm Federico Bellegrini an intern here from finance and corporate at first I was interested in asking which is the way and the degree of importance that you associated to corporate social responsibility in your business strategy and if you think that CSR can have an influence and an impact in your investors behavior thank you so this industry is about the long term and in order to create stability around the facility that we're running regardless of whether it's in the northern part of Norway in Alaska in Bucking in Venezuela in Brazil or in Tanzania I think you need to create ripple effects and you have to create trust in in in your operations and your company and the and the assets otherwise I think it's very very hard to to to develop successfully over time and I read a study the other day where they looked at why did big projects in the oil and gas industry fail and most people who think about they were technical factors but actually in most cases the oil and gas industry underestimates the issues above ground I mean the issues that you talk about so I I do not think about CSR something on the side it has to be you know integrated fully into the philosophy of your company and be actually a very I would say it's not a soft part a very hard part of the way you run and develop your company if you have it as a side activity you will lose almost at the outset so so it's a very important part of the the value added of of start over and in my view any other oil and gas company and I think more so my reflection is that the public trust in big institutions whether it's government and our private is actually going down in the society as such for many reasons financial crisis and so on and so forth while actually the society is expecting that we are part of solving some of the most pressing issues in the society I can hardly see see how politicians can solve the climate issue it has to involve you know private institutions and companies and I think people expect us to be to help solve human rights issues and so on and so forth so this is actually something that top management is totally working a lot on example right now big discoveries in Tanzania first really big oil and gas project in in that country how do we create a situation where that country really gets all gets the benefit and the majority of the values goes to to the the people and how do we create sort of sustainability around our operations it's technically that project is not it's something that we have done before the big issue is really how do we do align with the country well I just want to thank you very much for taking the time to stop by I mean I think that one of the really important things in the messages you delivered that I think is great for us to pay attention to is obviously this commitment to engaging right I mean when you look at sort of the complex environment managing a complex portfolio the commitment it takes to innovate the complacency that leads to sort of safety concerns it all sort of leads to more engagement not less and I think we probably couldn't agree more that that is certainly a public and private sector endeavor so thank you very much for taking the time to stop by we know you have a full agenda but please thank you help me