Your Excellency, Ministers, distinguished guests,
As Minister of Petroleum and Energy, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to Stavanger, the capital of Norwegian petroleum activities. I am very happy that you during this visit to Norway had the opportunity to visit not only Oslo, but also to see another part of our country. Let me add on a personal note that we are now in my home county. I am also very pleased to have this opportunity to meet again my good colleague Minister Güler, whom I had very good discussions with during his visit to Norway last October.

The Turkish government has achieved impressive results from it's economic restructuring after the financial crisis in 2001. This restructuring has taken place in parallel with all the work that lied ahead of the agreement to start accession talks to become a member of EU. I follow with great interest the developments in Turkey and I would like to take this opportunity to wish Turkey all the best of luck with the accession talks.

From an energy point of view, the economic development in Turkey is of course of great interest, as strong economic performance might result in growing natural gas consumption.

I am aware that the liberalization of the energy markets in Turkey has proven to be a complicated and time-consuming process. Nevertheless, from my point of view, regulatory predictability and transparency are of key importance for all investors. To secure efficient markets and to lay the foundations for economic growth – as I see it – there is no alternative to a predictable and transparent legal framework. In Norway we have good experience in this field from the harmonization of the common Nordic electricity market. I expect Statoil to be ready to offer its global knowledge and competence to cooperate with the authorities in Turkey in designing and implementing the process towards a competitive market place.

I am very pleased to note that within the energy sector companies from our two countries seem to have developed a very fruitful cooperation. The way Statoil and the Koç group have found so much common ground is inspiring and gives promise for a great future – to the benefit of companies from both countries, hopefully also beyond the petroleum sector. I take it that Statoil is ready to take part in the development of the Turkish natural gas market as it is being liberalized. I am in no doubt that further strengthening of the relationship between our two countries, especially in the petroleum sector, will be of mutual benefit of both countries.

We will have the opportunity to exchange views and experiences on these topics during our lunch. Let me finish this short welcome by stating once again that I am very pleased to meet you here in Stavanger to note that the relationship between our two countries is excellent.

And with that I would like to give the floor to the CEO of Statoil, Helge Lund, who so kindly has agreed to put at our disposal this very nice guest house.

Thank you.