Sara says “ha det”(goodbye)

July 7: Stavanger

Hey Dina, they do some groovy gurneying in Norway.

Today Tone and I walked into town from the apartment. Lovely walk -it skirts along the fjord. Here we are across the river from the apartment.

The Norwegians are very efficient with their land use. Tone is standing on top of a fire station which has a playground. Also some more of the local colour of Stavanger.

After lunch, Chris took me to the oil museum (Stavanger is an important industrial centre for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea). And for those who don’t know, Chris was a senior executive in the oil and gas industry and was responsible for the design, installation and operation of many of the facilities in the North Sea. So I got the most incredible tour of the museum, with Chris able to give me the “inside” perspective of the museum exhibitions. It was fascinating.

Chris is standing in front of a “welding habitat” which was used to create a “dry” workshop at the seabed. When pipelines needed to be repaired or connected, the welding habitat was lowered from a ship to the seabed. There were two divers inside under hyperbaric conditions, who then performed whatever welding was needed. This is no longer used as too many divers suffered from the work. Deep water work today is done by remotely operated or autonomous underwater vehicles. The yellow thing is called a wasp suit and is a combination of a diver and a remotely operated vehicle.

Chris explained all the different drill bits to me ( the bits that drill into the seabed). The world’s largest drill bit weighs almost 2 tonnes and measures 90 cm in diameter.

He also explained how the design of the drilling platforms had evolved over time. Chris was with a company called Smedvig Tankrederi who ordered the first Norwegian drilling rig.

He helped to build and install the Statfjord platform, which accounted for 50% of Norway’s oil production in the mid 1980s. This is the model of the Statfjord platform.

Statfjord A was the first concrete platform with oil storage cells (these are the cylinders at the bottom of the picture). Crude oil from the field got loaded into shuttle tankers (called “lorries of the sea”), sailing back and forth between the offshore fields and European ports.

And the museum has great models demonstrating the different technologies. Here are some of them.

This oil platform is taller than the Eiffel Tower.

You can tell that I found all this fascinating!

The museum also featured some of the major disasters that had occurred with oil platforms (remember the film “Deepwater Horizon”). One of those disasters occurred on the Alexander L Kielland platform in March 1980. The hotel accommodation for the platform workers was supported by 5 solid steel columns. One of them was ripped off (due to a crack in the welding) and the entire unit capsized. 123 people died. Tone’s father was a security guard at the company at that time and took the phone call advising of the disaster!

Here’s the foot of the wrecked column.

Norway’s oil fund,or the Government’s Pension Fund Global ranks as one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. Its investment strategy is determined by the Parliament so ownership of the fund rests with the Norwegian people. The government can invest something like 4% of the fund in the interests of Norwegian (Chris, pls correct me if I am wrong). That’s how they can afford SO many tunnels! The fund has 15 trillion dollars in it!

At the museum they have a ticker which shows that the fund is adding or losing $1 million every 12 seconds (dependent on the oil price of course).

Little Norway with a population equivalent to Sydney is the worlds 3rd largest gas exporter and the 12th biggest exporter of oil.

I can’t leave this blog without telling you about my last supper with the Levetts. Tone cooked a magnificent piece of salmon, with freshly grown potatoes, sweet and sour cucumbers, zucchini with Parmesan, and a kale and tomato salad. How spoiled am I!

It’s ha det to Norway and the end of a fabulous holiday.