Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, has reported a first-quarter loss of $40 billion, largely due to a downturn in the technology sector.
The fund, managed by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), saw its value drop to 18.53 trillion kroner by the end of March 2025, with 70% of its investments in equities, which recorded a 1.6% loss.
CEO Nicolai Tangen attributed the decline to significant market fluctuations, particularly in tech stocks, which have faced recent sell-offs. The fund holds major stakes in Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, and Microsoft, all of which have experienced volatility.
Additionally, currency movements played a role, with the Norwegian krone strengthening against key currencies, contributing to an 879 billion kroner (around $84.5 billion) decrease in the fund’s value.
Despite the losses, NBIM maintains a diversified portfolio, with fixed-income investments returning 1.6% and unlisted real estate yielding 2.4% gains.
Norway‘s massive world record breaking sovereign wealth fund reported a third-quarter profit of 835 billion Norwegian kroner ($76.3 billion) on Tuesday 22nd October 2024.
The fund’s performance was attributed to a stock market surge due to the decline interest rates.
The overall return for the quarter stood at 4.4%, which was 0.1 percentage points below the return of its benchmark index.
Significant deposits of rare earth metals have been found in both Norway and Sweden.
Norway
Rare Earths Norway (REN) has announced the discovery of the largest deposit of rare earth elements in Europe at the Fen Carbonatite Complex in southeastern Norway.
The deposit reportedly contains 8.8 million metric tons of total rare earth oxides (TREOs), including an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of magnet-related rare earths, which are vital for technologies like electric vehicles and wind turbines.
This discovery marks a significant advancement in Europe’s efforts to decrease its reliance on imported rare earths, especially from China.
Sweden
The discovery in Arctic Sweden of over one million tonnes of rare earth metals could significantly aid the EU in reducing its reliance on China for these crucial elements, which are essential for a wide range of high-tech applications.
These findings are critical for the green transition and Europe’s goal of increased self-sufficiency in vital raw materials. It is crucial to acknowledge, however, that the extraction process is intricate and necessitates meticulous attention to environmental impacts.
Due to the required permitting processes and environmental assessments, it could take over a decade for the materials from these discoveries to enter the market.
Fen Carbonatite Complex
The Fen Complex, located in Nome, Telemark, Norway, is renowned for its unique assortment of igneous rocks, such as carbonatite. It represents the remnants of a volcanic feeder pipe from a volcano that erupted 580 million years ago, characterised by carbonate-rich magma. The volcanic pipe’s circular formation spans roughly 2 km in diameter.
Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund reported a first-quarter profit of 1.21 trillion kroner ($109.9 billion) – bolstered by strong returns from its technology stock investments it was announced on Thursday 18th April 2024.
Established in the 1990s, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, invests the surplus revenue from the nation’s oil and gas sector. The fund has invested in over 8,800 companies across more than 70 countries to date.
Norway has a long history of carbon management. For nearly 30 years, it has captured and reinjected carbon from gas production into seabed formations on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Norway’s government wants to show the world it is possible to safely inject and store carbon waste under the seabed, saying the North Sea could soon become a ‘central storage camp’ for polluting industries across Europe.
Norway’s carbon management projects (Sleipner and Snøhvit) have been in operation since 1996 and 2008, respectively, and are often held up as proof of the technology’s viability. These facilities separate carbon from their respective produced gas, then compress and pipe the carbon and reinject it underground.
Carbon capture storage – nothing new
Offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) refers to a range of technologies that seek to capture carbon from high-emitting activities, transport it to a storage site and ‘lock’ it away indefinitely under the seabed.
Norway is currently a leading pioneer in carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by trapping carbon dioxide from industrial sources and injecting it into underground reservoirs. Norway has been operating CCS projects in the North Sea since 1996, using depleted oil and gas fields as storage sites.
Norway’s ambitious plan to expand CCS is called Project Longship, which involves building a full-scale CCS value system that can serve as a model for other countries and industries. The project consists of two parts: a capture facility in Brevik that will process emissions from a cement factory, and a transport and storage system that will ship the captured CO2 by ship to an offshore terminal and inject it into a permanent storage location in the North Sea.
Project Longship is expected to be completed by 2024, with a reported capacity to store 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year. The project has a total cost of 1.7 billion euros, of which the Norwegian government will cover 80%. The project is also supported by the European Union, which sees CCS as a key climate solution.
Norway’s current Energy minister (2004) reportedly said that the project will prove to the world that CCS is possible and necessary to meet the Paris Agreement goals. He also said that the North Sea could become a ‘central storage camp’ for CO2 from other countries and industries, as it has the potential to store up to 1.25 billion tonnes of CO2. That’s a real concern to me.
Long-term safety concerns
However, not everyone is convinced by Norway’s CCS vision. Some critics have raised concerns about the long-term safety and environmental impacts of storing CO2 under the seabed, as well as the ethical and moral implications of using the North Sea as a dumping site for carbon waste.
Norway’s CCS project is a controversial and complex undertaking that will test the feasibility and acceptability of this technology.
Whether it will succeed or fail remains to be seen, but it will certainly have a significant impact on the future of climate action.
Is it safe or wise to pump waste into and hide it under the sea? Humankind doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to clearing up after itself, does it? Go look at the rubbish in space!
Is it safe or wise to pump waste into and hide it under the sea? Humankind doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to clearing up after itself, does it? Go look at the rubbish in space!
Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund reported record profit of 2.22 trillion kroner ($213 billion) in 2023, supported by returns on its investments in technology stocks.
Despite high inflation and geopolitical unrest, the equity market in 2023 was strong, compared to a very weak year in 2022. It follows a record loss of 1.64 trillion Norwegian kroner for the whole of 2022, which the fund attributed to ‘very unusual’ market conditions at the time.
The ‘Government Pension Fund Global’, one of the world’s largest investors, reportedly said the fund marked its highest return in kroner ever, with the fund’s return on investment last year coming in at 16% for the year.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of the country’s oil and gas sector. To date, the fund has put money in more than 8,500 companies in 70 countries around the world.
