statoil 1972 2007 . statoil asa type public traded as ose stl nyse sto industry oil and gas founded june 14 1972 ; 44 years ago 1972 06 14 headquarters stavanger norway key people ystein l seth chair eldar s tre ceo 1 hans jakob hegge cfo products petroleum natural gas petrochemicals electrical power revenue 94 billion nok 723.4 billion 2012 2 operating income 27 billion nok 206.6 billion 2012 2 profit 9 billion nok 69.5 billion 2012 2 total assets 102 billion nok 784.4 billion 2012 2 total equity 42 billion nok 319.2 billion 2012 2 owner government of norway 67 % government pension fund of norway 3 % others 30 % number of employees 21 600 2015 3 website www.statoil.com old logo . this logo remains in use by statoil fuel & retail which was sold to alimentation couche tard in 2012 but will be replaced by the circle k brand beginning in 2016 . statoil asa ose stl is a norwegian multinational oil and gas company headquartered in stavanger norway . it is a fully integrated petroleum company with operations in thirty six countries . by revenue statoil is ranked by forbes magazine 2013 as the world s eleventh largest oil and gas company and the twenty sixth largest company regardless of industry by profit in the world . 4 the company has about 23 000 employees . 5 statoil was formed by the 2007 merger of statoil with the oil and gas division of norsk hydro . 6 as of 2013 the government of norway is the largest shareholder in statoil with 67 % of the shares while the rest is public stock . the ownership interest is managed by the norwegian ministry of petroleum and energy . 7 the company is headquartered and led from stavanger while most of their international operations are currently led from fornebu . contents 1 operations 1.1 upstream oil gas and biofuel operations 1.2 pipeline operations 1.3 retail station operations 2 history 2.1 statoil 2.2 hydro 2.3 merger 2.4 divestment 2.5 expansion of resources 2.6 recent news 3 corruption 3.1 trial against statoil consultant and two accomplices in 2011 4 controversies 4.1 corrib gas project 4.2 management of art collection 4.3 north sea 4.4 charges of unethical practices in athabasca 4.5 arctic 5 environmental record 6 sponsorship 7 references 8 external links operations edit upstream oil gas and biofuel operations edit see also statoil operations by country statoil is the largest operator on the norwegian continental shelf with 60 % of the total production . the fields operated are brage heimdal grane glitne gullfaks heidrun huldra kristin kvitebj rn mikkel njord norne ormen lange oseberg sleipner snorre sn hvit statfjord sygna tordis troll veslefrikk vigdis visund volve and sgard . the company also has processing plants at kolsnes k rst mongstad tjeldbergodden and melk ya . in addition to the norwegian continental shelf statoil operates oil and gas fields in australia algeria angola azerbaijan brazil canada china libya nigeria russia united states and venezuela . statoil has offices that are looking for possible ventures in the countries of mexico qatar and the united arab emirates . the company has processing plants in belgium denmark france and germany . in 2006 statoil was given approval to implement the world s largest carbon sequestration project as a means to mitigate carbon emissions to the atmosphere . citation needed in september 2007 statoil and the brazilian oil company petrobras signed a deal aimed at expanding exploration sub sea and bio fuels cooperation . after the merger with hydro statoil became a partner in brazil s offshore peregrino oil field which came on stream in 2011 . 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 corporation s 50 % share of the peregrino oil field for 1.8 billion usd . 8 at the time of acquiring the license the field s recovery factor was estimated to be 9 % . however with the current reservoir depletion plan of the field calling for the use of produced water injection and rock compaction peregrino s recovery factor has increased to 20 % . 9 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 . 10 in may 2010 noble energy inc. operator of the deep blue exploration well on green canyon 723 in the deepwater gulf of mexico successfully reached a depth of 32 684 feet 9 962 m . statoil holds a 15.625 per cent interest in the deep blue well . 11 in april 2011 statoil announced a large new find at the skrugard prospect in the northern norwegian sea barents sea in statoil terminology north of the sn hvit field off hammerfest . the find was seen as a key find as it could lead to more finds in the region . 12 in september 2011 the company announced a large new find at its aldous major south prospect on the norwegian continental shelf . it later amended its estimates up to between 900 million and 1.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil making it one of the largest ever finds on the shelf . 13 the discovery was made less than 10 feet 3 metres from where elf aquitaine had drilled a dry well in 1971 . 14 in june 2013 announced a statoil 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 . statoil joins hess santos total s.a. and other multi national oil companies in australia s northern territory basins . statoil s capital commitment to petrofrontier 175million . 15 heritage oil owns approx . 20 % of petrofrontier . 16 pipeline operations edit statoil is involved in a number of pipelines including zeepipe statpipe europipe i and europipe ii and franpipe from the norwegian continental shelf to western europe in addition to the baku tbilisi ceyhan pipeline in caucasus . the pipelines from norway are organized through gassled . in the north sea statoil operates the oseberg transport system kvitebj rn oil pipeline heidrun gas pipeline sleipner east pipeline and vestprosess pipeline . the company has trading offices for crude oil refined petroleum products and natural gas liquids in london stamford connecticut and singapore . retail station operations edit statoil is operator of statfjord in the norwegian north sea main article statoil fuel & retail the company operated three brands of fuel stations statoil hydro and 1 2 3 . statoil operated petrol station services in denmark estonia ireland latvia lithuania norway poland russia and sweden . some fully automated stations are branded 1 2 3 . in sweden the company also operated hydro stations . in total statoil had about 2 000 fuel stations . in mid 2008 statoil service stations in the republic of ireland began to rebrand as topaz following the acquisition of the company in 2006 by irish oil firm topaz energy group . in first quarter of 2010 statoil asa decided to have a new ownership structure for the retail operation . 17 statoil asa remained the main shareholder in the new company statoil fuel & retail asa . on april 18 2012 it was announced that alimentation couche tard will buy statoil fuel & retail for 2.8 billion . 18 history edit the heritage of statoil derives from the three major norwegian petroleum companies statoil norsk hydro and saga petroleum the latter two merged in 1999 . statoil edit see also history of statoil 1972 2007 . den norske stats oljeselskap a s was founded as a limited company owned by the government of norway on july 14 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 while the stations in ireland were purchased from british petroleum in 1992 and conocophilips jet in the mid 90s then sold by statoil to topaz oil in 2006 . statoil also built up a network of stations in part of eastern europe in the 1990s . in 1991 a controversy arose between statoil and local environmentalists mainly from natur og ungdom and friends of the earth norway who protested 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 . the controversy climaxed with civil disobedience by the environmentalists but the centre was still built . citation needed 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 % . 19 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 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 n ringsliv on september 3 2003 . citation needed wikinews has related news norway purchases canadian oil sands company 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 . 20 hydro edit main article hydro oil & gas in 1965 hydro joined elf aquitaine and six other french companies to form petronord to perform search for oil and gas in the north sea .