American Business - Norwegian Oil

Roger Martinsen, North Sea Worker

De: Oystein Torsrud

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

It was in the seventies the Norwegian oil age took off. The humble beginnings of imported rigs and equipment from Texas were being replaced by permanent offshore structures and infrastructure. Oilproduction peaked.
What did Norway have to offer the 150-year old American tradition of extracting the black gold. It became the subject of confrontations. Norwegians were to be avoided to interfere in the American way of doing business. The Americans did not accept that anyone should interfere in the way they saw fit to manage the oil business..
As Norwegians found their way into the lucrative Offshore work, the joints of the American hegemony started to crack.
All proposals to improve the way of doing business, and the dangerous working conditions, were met with a red flag and were to be fought at all costs.
Union demands and government demands were seen as sabotage and were not respected.
In this turbulent time, Roger Martinsen found himself on the side of the Americans. He was used to stop all attempts to undermine the American business method and ethics. It was no secret that he had great pains with the attempts to undermine the Norwegians' attempts to improve. His good diplomatic skills and persuasion resolved the vast majority of controversial situations. Not until the Americans saw the benefit of the Norwegian initiatives on their bottom lines did the controversial conditions in the North Sea stabilize.