OfD comments to news article on Ghanaian website

On February 3^rd a news article was published on a Ghanaian website (see link to the right) which indicated that the Norwegian oil company Aker ASA had been awarded a contract partly due to the petroleum related development assistance provided by Norway. Related to the specific claims put forward in the news article OfD has the following two comments:

• OfD’s only goal is to assist the governments in the cooperating countries in managing their petroleum resources in a way which maximizes the countries’ own interests. OfD does not work towards securing Norwegian oil companies contracts. If people within the petroleum regulatory authorities of the cooperating countries develop a general positive attitude towards Norway due to the assistance from OfD, this is a side effect beyond OfD’s control.
• Norwegian embassies generally play an important role in the management of OfD projects in the cooperating countries, so it is completely normal for the (previous) Norwegian Ambassador in Ghana to have been interested in the affairs of GNPC (the national oil company in Ghana). The Ambassador, however, never tried to promote Norwegian commercial interests in his engagement with GNPC.