The story
The heritage of Equinor derives from three major Norwegian petroleum companies Statoil, Norsk Hydro, and Saga Petroleum (the latter two merged in 1999).
Old Statoil
Den Norske Stats Oljeselskap A/S was founded as a limited company owned by the Government of Norway on 14 July 1972 by a unanimous act passed by the Norwegian parliament Stortinget. The political motivation was Norwegian participation in the oil industry on the continental shelf and to build up Norwegian competency within the petroleum industry to establish the foundations of a domestic petroleum industry. Statoil was required to discuss important issues with the Minister of Industry, later Minister of Petroleum and Energy. Statoil was also required to submit an annual report to the parliament.
In 1973, the company started work acquiring a presence in the petrochemical industry. This resulted in the development of processing plants in Rafnes and, in partnership with Norsk Hydro, the Mongstad plant in 1980. In 1981, the company acquired, as the first Norwegian company, operator rights on the Norwegian continental shelf on the Gullfaks field. 1987–88 saw the largest scandal in the company's history, the Mongstad scandal that made the until then unassailable CEO Arve Johnsen withdraw.
In the 1980s, Statoil decided to become a fully integrated petroleum company and started building the Statoil fuel station brand. The stations in Norway originated as Norol stations, while the stations in Denmark and Sweden were purchased from Esso in 1985, and the stations in Ireland were purchased from BP in 1992 and ConocoPhillips Jet in the mid 1990s, then sold by Statoil to Topaz Energy in 2006. Statoil also built up a network of stations in part of Eastern Europe in the 1990s.
In 1990, Statoil was one of several oil companies operating in the North Sea to be affected by a labor strike, which involved about 4,000 oil workers in total. In 1991, the company was the target of a months-long protest and civil disobedience, mainly from Natur og Ungdom and Friends of the Earth Norway. The protesters opposed the building of a new research and development centre at Rotvoll, in Trondheim, Norway, a wetlands area close to the city with significant bird life. However, the R&D center was still built.
The company was privatised and made a public limited company (allmennaksjeselskap) in 2001, becoming listed on both the Oslo Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. At the same time, it changed its name to Statoil ASA. The government retained 81.7% of the shares. Through further privatization in 2004 and 2005, the government's share was reduced to 70.9%.
The Statoil/Horton case refers to the company's use of bribes in Iran in 2002–2003 in an attempt to secure lucrative oil contracts in that country. This was mainly achieved by hiring the services of Horton Investments, an Iranian consultancy firm owned by Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, son of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Horton Investments was paid US$15.2 million by Statoil to influence important political figures in Iran to grant oil contracts to Statoil. The corruption scandal was uncovered by the Norwegian paper Dagens Næringsliv on September 3, 2003. In 2006, the company accepted a $10.5 million fine for violating the U.S Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
In September 2007, Statoil and the Brazilian oil company Petrobras signed a deal aimed at expanding exploration, sub-sea, and biofuels cooperation. Under the agreement, Statoil became a partner on six offshore licenses, as well as expanding biofuels production. Petrobras and Statoil announced plans to create dozens of refineries in Brazil and the rest of the world where vegetable oil will be added to crude to create a no-sulphur fuel. On 4 March 2008, Statoil bought Anadarko Petroleum's 50% share of the Peregrino oil field for $1.8 billion.
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In 2007, Statoil bought a large area in the Athabasca oil sand field in Canada after purchasing North American Oil Sands Corporation for $2.2 billion. (In 2012, Statoil had 4 oil sand licences (oljesandlisensene ) as part of the Kai Kos Deh Seh project: Leismer, Corner, Hangingstone, and Thornberry).
In 2009, Statoil launched the world's first operational deep-water floating large-capacity wind turbine, Hywind. The 120 metres (390 ft) tall tower with a 2.3 MW turbine was towed 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) offshore into the Amoy Fjord in 220 metres (720 ft) deep water, off of Stavanger, Norway on 9 June 2009 for a two-year test run.
Hydro
In 1965, Hydro joined Elf Aquitaine and six other French companies to form Petronord to perform searches for oil and gas in the North Sea. Hydro soon became a large company in the North Sea petroleum industry and also became the operator of a number of fields, the first being Oseberg.
In the late 1980s, Hydro acquired the Mobil service stations in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, changing their name to Hydro. In 1995, Hydro merged its stations in Norway and Denmark with Texaco, creating the joint venture HydroTexaco. The service station chain was sold in 2006 to Reitangruppen. In 1999, Hydro acquired Norway's third-largest petroleum company Saga Petroleum, which had major upstream operations primarily in Norway and the United Kingdom. The British operations were later sold.
Merger
A merger proposal was announced in December 2006. Under the rules of the EEA, the merger was approved by the European Union on 3 May 2007 and by the Norwegian Parliament on 8 June 2007. Statoil's shareholders hold 67.3% of the new company, with Norsk Hydro shareholders owning the remaining 32.7%. The Norwegian Government, the biggest shareholder in both Statoil and Norsk Hydro, holds 67% of the company. Jens Stoltenberg, the then Norwegian Prime Minister, commented that he viewed the merger as "the start of a new era...creating a global energy company and strengthening Norway's oil and gas industry."
It has been noted within the analyst community that a proposal will create an entity with much more competitive strength versus its much larger European rivals, including BP, Total, and Shell, while also increasing the ability of the company to make strategic acquisitions, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the ninth largest oil company in the world, and would be the 48th largest company in the world on the current Fortune Global 500 list with a revenue of NOK 480 billion.
The company's management team was initially to be led by president and CEO Helge Lund (who previously held the same posts at Statoil), with Eivind Reiten, the president and CEO of Hydro, acting as chairman. However, Reiten decided to resign as chairman three days after the merger because of a possible corruption case in Hydro's former oil division. The vice-chair and former Minister of Petroleum and Energy Marit Arnstad was chairperson until 1 April 2008, when Svein Rennemo took up the post on a permanent basis after resigning as the CEO of the Norwegian oil services company Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS).
To reflect a merger of the two companies and with regards of the minor partner, Hydro, it was decided that the joint company should be given a new name. An actual new name was not decided upon at the time of the merger, and StatoilHydro was created for temporary usage only. The firm announced its intention to revert to the name Statoil ASA, and this was approved by the Annual General Meeting in May 2009. The name was changed on 2 November 2009
The Norwegian state's share of the company after the merger was initially 62.5%. As a parliamentary decision in 2001 said it was a goal that the government should own 67% of Statoil, it was announced that the Norwegian government intended to increase its share. In 2009, it was announced that the Norwegian government had reached its goal of obtaining 67% of Statoil's share.
Investments and developments after 2009
In 2010, Statoil separated its downstream business into a separate listed company Statoil Fuel & Retail. In 2012 Alimentation Couche-Tard bought Statoil Fuel & Retail for $2.8 billion. On 24 May 2010, Statoil sold a 40% stake in the Peregrino field to Sinochem, the Chinese state-controlled oil company, for a cash sum of $3.07 billion, but retained 60% and the operatorship. On 7 April 2010, Statoil announced finding oil and gas reserves in the Fossekall prospect just north of the Norne oil field in the Norwegian Sea. The proved recoverable oil resources were provisionally estimated at between 37 and 63 million barrels (5,900,000 and 10,000,000 m3), while the volume of associated and free gas was estimated at between 1 and 3 billion standard cubic metres.
In early June 2011, Statoil ASA has divested 24.1% shares in Gassled joint venture for NOK 17.35 billion ($3.25 billion) to Solveig Gas Norway AS and still has 5% shares in the partnership. In 2016 Statoil sold the Leismer oil sand operation in Canada to Athabasca Oil.
In 2011–2012, Statoil announced a new discovery in the North Sea of 0.5 to 1.2 billion barrels (79 to 191 million cubic metres), a large new find at its Aldous Major South prospect on the Norwegian continental shelf with recoverable oil between 0.9 to 1.5 billion barrels (140 to 240 million cubic metres), a large new find at the Skrugard prospect in the northern Norwegian Sea (Barents Sea in Statoil terminology) north of the Snøhvit field off Hammerfest, and a find in the Havis Prospect of the Barents Sea of 200 to 3,000 million barrels (32 to 477 million cubic metres) of oil.
In 2011, Statoil bought Brigham Exploration for $4.4 billion to gain access to its oil shale operations in North Dakota's Bakken formation. In 2012, Statoil sent 45,000 barrels of oil per day by railroad cars from North Dakota. In November 2011, a Statoil consultant and two others were tried for having received 7 million Norwegian kroner, in exchange for contracts and payments totaling "several tenfold" of millions of Norwegian kroner.
In June 2013, Statoil announced a funded joint venture with Petrofrontier Corp. in Australia. Petrofrontier's Georgina Basin shale oil and gas bearing structures consistent with other producing areas in Australia and North America. In 2016, Statoil licensed 66% of the Carcará field in the Santos basin from Petrobras for $2.5 billion. In October 2014, Statoil sold its 15.5% stake in the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan to Petronas for a fee of $2.25 billion. Since 1 October 2014, Statoil also supplies natural gas to Ukraine's Naftogaz. In 2016, Statoil acquired a $3 million share of a US wind turbine leasing company. Statoil expects oil demand to peak in the 2020s, and continually decline thereafter due to electric transportation.
Despite finding no oil at its large exploration prospect in the Arctic in 2017, Statoil announced in October 2017 that the company would not give up exploring the Arctic.
In October 2017, Statoil commissioned the 30-MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm 29 kilometres (18 mi) off Peterhead, Scotland. Equinor was contracted to build a wind tower assembly farm in New York City that same year. In March 2018, Statoil acquired a 50% stake in the Polish Bałtyk Środkowy III and Bałtyk Środkowy II (Middle Baltic II/III) offshore wind farms.
In February 2024, Equinor and Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals Corporation limited (DFPCL) entered into a 15-year agreement to supply natural gas liquids annually from 2026. The annual supply will be up to 0.65 million tons of gas.
In May 2025, the ban against working was lifted after a month and Equinor was allowed to continue working on the major offshore wind project for New York. The project at the time had been one-third complete and Equinor had already spent more than half of the $5 billion needed to complete it. This wind farm will be the first connected to New York City's grid once completed.
The Northern Lights CO2 project began operating in August 2025. CO2 is transported to the facility and injected into the Aurora reservoir 2,600 meters under the North Sea bed for storage.
Equinor and Shell merged to create Adura in December 2025, which includes 12 producing oil and gas assets and projects. The joint venture is based in Aberdeen and is expected to deliver over 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. It includes Mariner, Rosebank, Buzzard, Shearwater, Penguins, Gannet, Nelson, Pierce, Jackdaw, Victory, Clair and Schiehallion as well as various exploration licenses.
Rebranding to Equinor
On 15 March 2018, Statoil announced that it would change its name to Equinor following approval by the annual general meeting.
Between 2007 and 2019, the company reported massive losses, including over USD $21.5 billion lost from its US-based assets. In 2019, the company sold its assets in Eagle Ford, Texas to Repsol for $325 million.
In August 2020, Equinor appointed Anders Opedal as its new CEO. That year, the company announced that it would be decreasing employee numbers by 20% and contractor numbers by half in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, in response to falling oil prices.
In January 2021, Equinor acquired a contract to provide off-shore wind power to the city of New York in partnership with BP. The contract with New York State was reportedly the largest offshore wind deal offered by an American state to date. In February 2021, Equinor completed the sale of its shale assets in the Bakken formation of North Dakota to Grayson Mill Energy for $900 million. That month, a spokesperson for the company stated that Equinor was considering further sales of energy assets in the US, in the aftermath of the global oil price war.
In May 2021, Equinor and Italian energy company Eni announced that they were partnering on developing floating wind farms in the North Sea under a contract with the Norwegian government. Equinor partnered with Norwegian renewable energy company Vårgrønn in 2021 to acquire wind acreage in the Utsira Nord region of the North Sea.
From Wikipedia’s article on Equinor, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8