On Monday, its plans for participation in Russia's Stockman gas field in the Barents Sea spurred new warnings. Russia has suggested the new field may be operated with electricity from a floating nuclear power plant, and that drew fire from environmental champion Frederic Hauge.
Floating nuclear power plants are "something Norwegian authorities should absolutely distance themselves from," Hauge told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). He fears a nuclear accident.
"StatoilHydro should withdraw from this project," Hauge claimed, even if the Russians only start working on such plans.
StatoilHydro denies that nuclear power is part of the plans discussed with the other partners on Stockman, Gazprom of Russia and Total of France.
The prospect of getting involved with floating nuclear power is the latest in a series of StatoilHydro projects that's sparked concern.
The company is also involved with controversial oil sand extraction projects in northern Alberta, says it will keep doing business in Iran, and plans to search for new oil sources north of Alaska, in some of what environmentalists maintain are the most vulnerable areas to be found in the Arctic.
StatoilHydro is also pumping far more carbon emissions into the atmosphere than expected from its new Snow White and Melkøya projects.
The US-based Sierra Club is asking both the Norwegian government and the Norwegian people to demand a halt to StatoilHydro's plans off Alaska. Any oil spill in the area will ruin Norway's environmental image in the world, Sierra Club officials claim.
'Safeguards in place'
StatoilHydro executives maintain they are genuinely concerned about the environment and take great precautions to safeguard their oil exploration and extraction activities.
Oil exploration is defensible, they claim, adding that StatoilHydro has a lot of experience in judging the consequences on offshore fields in Arctic areas.
Trude Sundset, who now has responsibility for climate and environmental issues at StatoilHydro, concedes the company has some technolocial challenges to overcome, but she's optimistic. Nor does she see any inherent conflict in Statoil's need to earn money and be environmentally friendly.
"It's possible to do several things at the same time," she told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv over the weekend. She says Statoil has some successful carbon recapture projects underway already, for example, that are "completely possible" to imitate elsewhere in the world.
"We must take the problems seriously, and we must use the best technology we have to work with renewable energy and energy efficiency," she said. In the Arctic, she added, "we must maintain strict environmental standards and prevent oil spills. I believe we can do that as we move north, even though there are challenges."
