5 ms·

Norway's largest pension fund KLP exits oil sands companies

70 points by reddotX 7y ago

gruez 7y ago
Relevant post from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948
hapless 7y ago
Easy to divest when, right now, all of them look like pretty bad investments.
- newguy1234 7y ago
  You want to divest from an investment before it becomes a horrible investment, not after it has lots most of its value.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    I get the feeling this comes under "cut your losses".
- protomyth 7y ago
  Once fracking kicked in, oil sands was pretty much dead from a cost perspective. Plus, Canada had a fire that didn't do them any favors.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Ah, oil sands. I've recently learned about the environmental issues surrounding them, and their existence makes any kind of complaining about dangers of nuclear waste completely ridiculous and/or disingenuous. Just take a look at e.g. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_ponds https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_p... ; apparently creating city-sized lakes of badly contained, liquid, ridiculously toxic, harmful for thousand years sludge is somewhat unremarkable, whereas replacing some of that demand with nuclear can't happen because of orders of magnitude less volume of much easier to handle (and reprocessable in the future) waste is somehow a show-stopper.
- ggcdn 7y ago
  link seems to be unavailable now
  - dublinben 7y ago
    They have an erroneous trailing semicolon. If you remove that, the link works fine. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_ponds https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_p...
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Fixed, thanks.
    - Danieru 7y ago
      Wow. Growing up in Alberta I heard so much about the tar sands in my mind they were huge. Yet that link shows them to be pretty small and localized to North of Fort Mac.
      - 14 7y ago
        77 square kilometre for the ponds and 220 square kilometres for the ponds and structures. What would you call big that seems huge to me?
        Danieru 7y ago
        Growing up in Alberta the oil sands were such a big part of everyday life it sounded like half the province was mines. Yet 220km squared is only 20x11km, or 40 average sized farms. Of which there are about 50k farms in Alberta. Sure its large compared to my house, but my house isn't worth billions nor does my house power a significant portion of the countries energy needs. Compare that to the metro region of Calgary: 5,110.21 km squared.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  > whereas replacing some of that demand with nuclear can't happen because of orders of magnitude less volume of much easier to handle (and reprocessable in the future) waste is somehow a show-stopper I don't think the main issue is with the nuclear waste. It's with the fact that even though it's possible to build and operate safe nuclear plants, human nature gets in the way and prevents that from happening.
patfla 7y ago
KLP (according to Reuters) is the largest pension fund in Norway? Who anyway is KLP? https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=norway+klp+pension+fund https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=norway+... I see: public employees. Public employee pension funds, in the West, are often some of the largest by country. Norway's actual largest pension fund, the so-called Oil Fund, is, at > $1 trln. in assets, much larger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... It's the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world and owns 1.5% of the world's "stocks and shares" (as Wikipedia puts it) - it's a behemoth. And how did Norway accumulate all that wealth? North Sea oil. Whenever I hear "responsible this and that" from Norway, I chuckle. The ironies are rich. It's all fine and good to be responsible this and that once you're as wealthy as Croesus. With a population of 5.26 mln. people, it's sort of like a reasonably sized global metropolis came into a fortune well in excess of a trillion $. Bring on those Teslas.
- eesmith 7y ago
  Nice derailing there! The thing about Norway is that they were responsible before they were as wealthy as Croesus. Where did the UK North Sea oil profits go? Where do the US oil profits go? Just what do you think a responsible fund should do, significantly beyond what Norway does?
  - vinni2 7y ago
    You are right that Norway has done the best any country could do with oil money. But it is also time they start planning for future when oil runs out or it is banned. The problem is the Norwegian economy still heavily depends on oil income. Huge number of well paid jobs are because of oil sector. All this party will be over once they are dismantled. Since the oil fund is not allowed to to be spent the economy has to go through a radical change. The biggest industry after oil in Norway is fishing! That says something about the economy in Norway. The consequences of oil free economy on Norway at least as of today would be dire. Taxes will increase unemployment will increase. They will be forced to use oil fund.
  - ChrisLomont 7y ago
mikhailfranco 7y ago
It seems perverse for Norway (pensions or SWF) to invest in fossil fuels of any kind. They have oil, so other investments should be at least diversified away from oil, or optimally with some significant element of renewable energy. In that way, they can stabilize future returns to the whole country and reduce the financial risk of a political escalation against carbon.

70 points by reddotX 7y ago

Relevant post from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948

hapless 7y ago

Easy to divest when, right now, all of them look like pretty bad investments.

newguy1234 7y ago
You want to divest from an investment before it becomes a horrible investment, not after it has lots most of its value.
- protomyth 7y ago
  I get the feeling this comes under "cut your losses".
protomyth 7y ago
Once fracking kicked in, oil sands was pretty much dead from a cost perspective. Plus, Canada had a fire that didn't do them any favors.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Ah, oil sands. I've recently learned about the environmental issues surrounding them, and their existence makes any kind of complaining about dangers of nuclear waste completely ridiculous and/or disingenuous. Just take a look at e.g. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_ponds https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_p... ; apparently creating city-sized lakes of badly contained, liquid, ridiculously toxic, harmful for thousand years sludge is somewhat unremarkable, whereas replacing some of that demand with nuclear can't happen because of orders of magnitude less volume of much easier to handle (and reprocessable in the future) waste is somehow a show-stopper.

ggcdn 7y ago
link seems to be unavailable now
- dublinben 7y ago
  They have an erroneous trailing semicolon. If you remove that, the link works fine. https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_ponds https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_sands_tailings_p...
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Fixed, thanks.
  - Danieru 7y ago
    Wow. Growing up in Alberta I heard so much about the tar sands in my mind they were huge. Yet that link shows them to be pretty small and localized to North of Fort Mac.
    - 14 7y ago
      77 square kilometre for the ponds and 220 square kilometres for the ponds and structures. What would you call big that seems huge to me?
      - Danieru 7y ago
        Growing up in Alberta the oil sands were such a big part of everyday life it sounded like half the province was mines. Yet 220km squared is only 20x11km, or 40 average sized farms. Of which there are about 50k farms in Alberta. Sure its large compared to my house, but my house isn't worth billions nor does my house power a significant portion of the countries energy needs. Compare that to the metro region of Calgary: 5,110.21 km squared.
hanniabu 7y ago
> whereas replacing some of that demand with nuclear can't happen because of orders of magnitude less volume of much easier to handle (and reprocessable in the future) waste is somehow a show-stopper I don't think the main issue is with the nuclear waste. It's with the fact that even though it's possible to build and operate safe nuclear plants, human nature gets in the way and prevents that from happening.

patfla 7y ago

KLP (according to Reuters) is the largest pension fund in Norway? Who anyway is KLP? https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=norway+klp+pension+fund https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=norway+... I see: public employees. Public employee pension funds, in the West, are often some of the largest by country. Norway's actual largest pension fund, the so-called Oil Fund, is, at > $1 trln. in assets, much larger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... It's the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world and owns 1.5% of the world's "stocks and shares" (as Wikipedia puts it) - it's a behemoth. And how did Norway accumulate all that wealth? North Sea oil. Whenever I hear "responsible this and that" from Norway, I chuckle. The ironies are rich. It's all fine and good to be responsible this and that once you're as wealthy as Croesus. With a population of 5.26 mln. people, it's sort of like a reasonably sized global metropolis came into a fortune well in excess of a trillion $. Bring on those Teslas.

eesmith 7y ago
Nice derailing there! The thing about Norway is that they were responsible before they were as wealthy as Croesus. Where did the UK North Sea oil profits go? Where do the US oil profits go? Just what do you think a responsible fund should do, significantly beyond what Norway does?
- vinni2 7y ago
  You are right that Norway has done the best any country could do with oil money. But it is also time they start planning for future when oil runs out or it is banned. The problem is the Norwegian economy still heavily depends on oil income. Huge number of well paid jobs are because of oil sector. All this party will be over once they are dismantled. Since the oil fund is not allowed to to be spent the economy has to go through a radical change. The biggest industry after oil in Norway is fishing! That says something about the economy in Norway. The consequences of oil free economy on Norway at least as of today would be dire. Taxes will increase unemployment will increase. They will be forced to use oil fund.
- ChrisLomont 7y ago

mikhailfranco 7y ago

It seems perverse for Norway (pensions or SWF) to invest in fossil fuels of any kind. They have oil, so other investments should be at least diversified away from oil, or optimally with some significant element of renewable energy. In that way, they can stabilize future returns to the whole country and reduce the financial risk of a political escalation against carbon.