Statoil changes name to Equinor
Baku, May 16, AZERTAC
Statoil confirmed this morning that its new name, Equinor, was approved at the firm`s Annual General Meeting yesterday, according to the equinor.com website.
From Wednesday, the majority state-owned company will change its 46-year-old name to Equinor and trade on the Oslo Exchange under the new ticker EQNR.
The Norwegian government, which has a 67 percent stake in the firm, has said it will back the move.
The oil and gas company said the name change was a natural step after it decided last year to become a “broad energy” firm, investing up to 15-20 percent of annual capital expenditure in “new energy solutions” by 2030, mostly in offshore wind.
“A name with ‘oil’ as a component would increasingly be a disadvantage. None of our competitors has that. It served us really well for 50 years, I don’t think it will be the best name for the next 50 years,” Eldar Saetre, Statoil’s chief executive said.
The new name was meant to arouse curiosity among young people so they see the other aspects of Statoil, including renewable energy, he added.
Technology students became less interested in working for oil firms after oil prices crashed in 2014 and renewable energy gained in prominence.
Statoil ranked 15th in an annual survey of the Nordic country’s most attractive employers conducted by karrierestart.no, a Norwegian careers website, and Norwegian firm Evidente, published on May 3. In 2013, it ranked first.
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