Harald Karlstrøm from Origo Kapital first raised the idea of a new Northern Norwegian oil company during the Finnmark Conference in Alta in the autumn of 2004. KapNord Fond, in the person of Tore Andreassen, gave the process more wind in its sails in the autumn of 2006 and worked together with Harald on it further with the intent of presenting a concept for a Northern Norwegian oil company with the broadest possible anchoring in the region. Johan P. Barlindhaug was brought in at the beginning of 2007 to give the work greater breadth and elevate the concept to the national level, as well as to register the reactions to the idea of a Northern Norwegian oil company in his own network. The feedback from the central members were unanimously positive.
North Energy – the Northern Norwegian oil company
Erik Karlstrøm arranged for the preparation of drafts through SB Finans. These were collected together into one document and then a working relationship was discussed with two investment funds, Origo Kapital and KapNord Fond. The driving force behind the idea was that Northern Norwegian circles should assume a more active role and ownership of the resources on the Northern Norwegian Continental Shelf, and see to it that more of the industrial assets created remained in the region.
The meeting at Langstilla in Altaelva early in August 2007 was an important milestone in the process of creating the company. Here, the idea was further fleshed out through an obligatory action plan. This injected new inspiration and energy into the work. Further work on the project now took place within a more solid framework, with financial guarantees from Origo Kapital, KapNord Fond, AS JPB, Salten Kraftsamband and Alta Kraftlag. Group Managing Director Leif Finsveen at Salten Kraftsamband now became the fourth person in the working group and contributed to the financial weight and geographical distribution in the future group of owners.
4 September 2007
North Energy AS was founded on 4 September 2007. The Board, which when the company was founded consisted of Harald Karlstrøm, Tore Andreassen, Johan Petter Barlindhaug and Eirik F. Hansen, then carried out a share issue, raising NOK 150 million, placing the company in a position to hire the personnel who were necessary for the process of becoming qualified as an oil company to be able to begin. The share issue was significantly oversubscribed and showed that the enthusiasm and approval of the new Northern Norwegian oil company, North Energy, was quite large. A new capital-intensive company was thus formed, with venture capital from across the entire region.
