Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure for me to join the Statfjord licensees' at this happy moment, celebrating 25 years of oil production from Statfjord.

Statfjord was discovered by Mobil (now ExxonMobil) in February 1974. Mobil developed the field and in January 1987 Statoil took over the operatorship. Statfjord is the largest oilfield in the North Sea and has played a major role in the Norwegian oil and gas history.

Since the Statfjord-field was discovered, its contribution to the Norwegian oil and gas industry has been of great importance. Developing the Statfjord-field required major investments and large scale operations, which have been vital for developing the Norwegian oil and gas supply industry, creating employment in Western parts of Norway and developing new technology.

Statfjord has during these 25 years contributed with approximately 450 billion Norwegian kroner to the Norwegian state. This is in average 18 billion kroner per year or 2 million kroner per hour during the last 25 years. It is therefore fair to say that the income from Statfjord has played an important part in developing the Norwegian welfare state. Moreover, Statfjord has been and still is a great success, and not the economic headace that some sceptics would have it to become because of investment overruns in the early years.

On behalf of the Norwegian Government I would like to thank ExxonMobil, which found and developed the field, the operator Statoil, the remaining Statfjord licensees', the Statfjord organisation and all the people that made Statfjord a success story.

After 25 years of production Statfjord is preparing for late-life production. This is a new challenge for the Statfjord organisation, but it is crucial for the future of the field. The Statfjord late-life project lead to production of considerable remaining volumes of natural gas and increase the total oil production from the Statfjord reservoir. Investments in Statfjord late-life project will increase the oil recovery rate to an impressive 68 percent and extend the life of Statfjord to 2018.

Congratulations with 25 years of production! I wish you luck in developing Statfjord to 2018 and hopefully even longer.

Skål!