Trillion Dollar Baby: How Norway Beat the Oil Giants and Won a Lasting Fortune

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Unlike many other countries, Norway has taken a non-renewable resource and turned it into a financial asset that can last for generations to come. This is the story of how the Norwegians did it. For most of its history, Norway eked out a marginal existence from fishing, forestry and shipping. But things changed in 1969, when the country found one of the world's biggest offshore oilfields. As the revenue started to flow, Norway began to create the world's best system for developing mineral resources - and for extracting the maximum possible share of the profits. From the outset, Norway decided that it was the master and not the servant of Big Oil. Twenty years after it began stashing its cash, this country of just five million people has amassed the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, with assets of more than US$850 billion - and it's on track to exceed $1 trillion in 2020. Unlike many other countries, Norway has taken a non-renewable resource and turned it into a financial asset that can last for generations to come. This is the story of how the Norwegians did it.

Author Bio

Paul Cleary is the author of Mine-field- The Dark Side of Australia's Resource Rush. He is a senior writer with the Australian and a researcher in public policy at the Australian National University. He has reported on economics and politics for a decade in the Canberra press gallery and served as an adviser to the government of East Timor on resource sector governance and negotiations. His books include Shakedown- Australia's Grab for Timor Oil, The Men Who Came Out of the Ground and Too Much Luck- The Mining Boom and Australia's Future. He lives in Sydney.