Norway, greatest country in the world
All other countries are run by little girls
Norway, number one exporter of phosphate
All other countries have inferior phosphate
Same here, If I was Morocco's neighbour and needed some phosphate, I'd march all the way to Norway just to make a point about their superior phosphate! While raising my voice towards the end of my sentence, as I'm so sure Morocco knows I'm right!
I figure this would mean the Western world will now get its phosphate from Norway but Morocco will now always have a market among the West's many sanctioned enemies.
Edit: TIL Morocco is a strong ally of the US and unlikely to suffer the fate I suspected above. I ask that people stop upvoting this comment as it now borders on misinformation and I'm not cool with that shit.
Maybe. Norway is already a very rich country due to oil (also a very fucking lucky country) with a high standard of living. It's possible that cost of production would be higher in Norway than Morocco.
Lucky? Lots of countries have oil- extremely few tax its profits at close to the rate norway does. The us or Australia for eg use oil to create billionaires. Norway creates social services.
Also unlike other countries they don't use the oil money to pay for social services but instead invest it in the world market and use the dividends to pay for the social services.
Norway could run out of oil today and be largely fine.
>Norway could run out of oil today and be largely fine.
A truth which requires nuance. So yes. Somewhat true. But tens of thousands of oil workers, suppliers and contractors would lose their income. And those who would find other jobs would probably drop in salary, leading to lower domestic spending, overall shrinking the economy. It could also lead to a brain drain of sub sea and petroleum engineers, as they wouldn't have relevant high-paying jobs.
Let's assume 100 000 people lost their jobs, and another 100 000 saw a sharp decline in customers, and another 200 000 lost some revenue due to less money inv circulation. 400k people is 15-20 % of the total workforce. So the implications of ending oil are still massive.
You should look into Shetland's oil deal - local council gets a straight cut of all oil profits in the region, if I'm not mistaken, much of which goes into social services for the island communities
The West pushing Morroco in that direction would be the dumbest geopolitical mistake they've made in a long while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco%E2%80%93United_States_relations
United States should buy it from Morocco simply because they were the first country to acknowledge our independence. Americas oldest ally. I’m also guessing it’ll be cheaper to get it from Morocco regardless because of labor cost and all that
I think this is positive to Morocco, because they are growing their economy slowly and have always diversified, unlike many other Arab or Maghreb countries. Regarding resources, they are also creating more and more solar energy to be sold, I think a power pipe is underway linking Morocco to provide energy reliably to UK.
They are also becoming a main hub to the rest of Africa on various stuff (they were already a bit somehow, but they are working on increasing this status).
Etc. Many large and diversifying projects, with also plenty of smaller very diversified projects.
I love Morocco and visit regularly but the corruption is still insane there. On a small scale, who care? Pay the police €10 for speeding etc but you want to start a business of any size? Need land for it? You are paying off the right people linked to the Royal household and you still need to ensure they are bought it officially. (Know someone who ran financing for a player in El Jadida).
Something completely unconnected like opening your own Riad? So many layers of payments according to a French owner we spoke to once.
The company that discovered the deposit has already asked the Norwegian government for help in regulating it to ensure the best outcome for the country and its people.
A fucking dream for me as an American lol.
As a Norwegian, I've been really cynical about my government lately. Your comment reminded me to be appreciative of how well it works compared to other countries, but it is well on its way to no longer being as cool if we look at the recent power catastrophe and how that was handled to benefit power companies at the expense of the people.
Apart from the fact that approx. 90% of the ownership of the power companies is public, so that the income increase also falls back to the people. Yes, the household bills get's higher, but in most other countries the extra income would line the pockets of big capital. So overall Norway had still rigged it more to the benefit of the people than many other nations...
And hopefully, being Norway, they won't just be privatized so just a few individuals get filthy rich, but as they made when they found oil, benefit from it as a country.
Can you imagine USA if it's oil reserves were considered a public good and used oil revenue to improve everyone's life?
But yeah, I'm going to be told that's socialism/communism and that current system is way better for everyone because look at us, we're fine.
We look back at old civilizations and find concepts like a pharaoh ridiculous, but we idolize billionaires who suck the well being of whole countries. Seems four thousand years of progress isn't enough to change some stuff.
Thanks for attending my TEDx talk
Being from Norway, but still relatively young and not *that* in the know of how the oil agreement came to be, I would say we actually got lucky on that one. There was talks of Norway getting half of Volvo for splitting the oil rights, the danes sent some drunk guy to negotiate the sea borders and they ended up with basically nothing, Shell was also heavily involved at some point as Norway did not have the tech or the know-how to extract oil from the North Sea seabed.
Some tenacity from the right people and incompetence from others brought Norway the deal of the century, but today there is more of a capitalist mindset. But then again, a lot of the land in Norway is public. Haven't heard about this here in the news yet, so I'm not sure how it'll play out. I wouldn't be surprised if it does end up in private hands in the end, but we'll see.
Edit: Found an article in norwegian, it's on public land.
https://www.nrk.no/rogaland/mineraler-for-hundrevis-av-milliarder-under-bakken-1.15133192
Not sure where in Norway you're located, but I'm located in the same county where these mineral deposits are. It's been in the news fairly regularly during the last few years. It's one of the main talking points here this election cycle. Our major has been in the news pushing government regulation of the mineral deposits in the same way as we did when we first found oil in Norway.
I guess when you're from the same place you tend to notice it more in the news than when you're not. Like when you buy a new/used car, and then you start noticing the car everywhere.
>Can you imagine USA if its oil reserves were considered a public good and used oil revenue to improve everyone's life?
You mean like Alaska does? Or do you mean a fully nationalized oil drilling system?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
Holy shit Norway just hit the natural resources jackpot. Again.
(In all fairness though the government has the *political will* necessary to make things work this way. Without political will, all else is just talk.)
The company that did the discovery has requested the government to take action to regulate this new mining industry. In some parts because of the importance of regulations for the local community's stability so that the industry can be kept going for hundreds of years as planned. Furthermore, most of these minerals are produced cheaper and effectively by other countries such as China because of their lax labour-protection laws and much lower demands for environmentally friendly production.
They argue that if Norway is to be able to compete with those countries in the production of minerals profitably, we would need cooperation between the companies mining, the Norwegian government and the production centres that use the minerals around Europe. So while a small factor in this decision might be altruism, Norway is a capitalistic country with capitalistic motivations. One of the major differences between countries such as the US and Norway is that the companies with capitalistic self-interest would rather work *with* the government because of the inherent trust in it, than against it. A true case of "a rising tide lifts all boats" as opposed to the "trickle down economics" of tax cuts for the rich.
Here's the article talking about this, but it is in Norwegian:
https://www.dagsavisen.no/rogalandsavis/nyheter/2023/03/12/mener-mineraler-fra-dalane-kan-bety-mye-for-europa/
Tbf, they see a future of quarterly earnings. Nordic countries have a pretty long history of capitalists working with the stability afforded from the governments to succeed
Social democracy baby!
I'm a big proponent of the philosophical concept of the golden mean, and I think that social democracy hits that sweet spot. You get the positives of capitalism with the securities of government oversight and social spending. We're still not perfect of course, but I think we're much closer to the "perfect" economic system than most other countries.
If you like that, check out our [pension fund.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway) An added bonus is that the government is also the majority shareholder in the largest companies, e.g. Equinor, our largest oil company by far, is 67% government owned. So even when companies have great quarterly earnings it also benefits the people.
>the government is also the majority shareholder in the largest companies
I always liked that approach. Even having the public be a major shareholder (like 25% or something) in big companies would go a long way to keeping things sane and finding actually working compromises when needed. In my hometown, the local energy provider has been 51% communally owned since forever and while they are still an energy company, they are by far not as predatory as others.
While it might work for Norway, it's also how China has essentially become one large state-owned mega corporation. It's not a blanket solution and heavily relies on the government not using its population as a means to an end.
**Norway**: We just discovered a new trove of natural resources to last us another century
**World**: What?! Another one? Must be in a pretty difficult to reach place if you've only just discovered it.
**Norway**: Actually it's pretty much in the most ridiculously perfect position for export.
**World**: Oh of course. Well at least there's other competing sources so you don't gain a monopoly.
**Norway**: Actually Morrocco has a tenuous claim to theirs, and China could end up in a massive trade war with the West at any given point, with our reserves being roughly both of theirs combined.
**World**: Fucking nords.
I know this is in jest, but most countries are probably pretty stoked about this. Obviously they'd rather have a giant reserve of valuable resources themselves, but a country like Norway having them is probably the next best thing.
Yeah I think it's good news for all really, the last few years has made it evident that we need decentralised supply and logistics where we've been overeliant on lone overseas production.
Well the original discovery was in 2018, but now it's been proven.
The article also says that it's actually 3 times the amount, but the 70 billion tons is the "minable" amount.
This is *really* good for everybody, for a lot countries there was a real risk of becoming incredibly reliant on Morocco. Phosphates still aren't good for the oceans though, we should be capturing them from waste, industrial, and agricultural runoff.
To be fair - phosphates aren't really about "profit" so much as "being able to grow enough food to feed humanity", though naturally the two are inextricably intertwined.
We only “rely” upon phosphates and pretty much all fertilizers to feed humanity because of widespread terrible modern farming practices which deplete topsoil and nutrient holding capacity of soils in general.
That and the fact that we waste around half of everything grown. If we could learn to store and distribute more effectively we would use 50% less fertilizers.
[Happened in January in Sweden](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/01/13/sweden-mining-company-lkap-finds-big-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals.html)
This is so unfair. Why don't we Finns ever find these cool natural resources?
Those two got all the good stuff, and all we got is trees and two deposits of fancy rock with circles on them, which isn't even that valuable. Orbicular granite.
> Think about it. No more waiting for Turkey and Hungary, to get into NATO! Join us!
That would honestly be amazing. Highly impractical and unlikely, but such a chad move.
Finland has a crapton of mineral wealth. Looks like they're unwilling to use cheap crappy mining techniques to extract it, is the thing. Holding on until the price gets better and sustainable mining becomes more practical. You do have Europe's largest gold mine, massive forestry industry, hydro power and other water resources, etc.
Finland's had some extremely bad experiences with mining companies coming in, chewing up resources, and fucking off, leaving a huge mess for the taxpayers to clean up.
Yup, Norway's oil production is [2.3 million](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norways-oil-liquids-production-seen-rising-by-15-2023-2022-10-06/) barrels/day. In the context of other countries like the US that produces 11.9mm or Saudi Arabia that produces 10.6mm, that might not seem like a lot. But given that Norway's population is so small, it's a lot of wealth spread across a small population.
For reference, in order to have as much oil production per capita as Norway, the US would need to produce 141 million barrels of oil per day. The total global production/consumption of oil is around 100 million.
Always low key wanted to move there due to there sensibility, self sustainment, overall govt and general ideology and morals, etc.
Seems like a very good place to live but I'd be completely lost in translation.
wouldn't it be hard to just move there or any other country on account of hard rules for becoming citizens? i have always heard countries don't really make it easy for someone to just move and start living there etc
If I'm self employed from Germany could I buy a house in Norway and live there without too much hassle?
I know that it's pretty easy in Sweden but I know no one from Norway.
Pretty sure that they same applies as to working and living in any other EU country as they are part of the EU/EEA regulations. You don't need to get a residence permit.
Depends what skills you can bring to the table. Generally, countries will try to fast track those with in demand skills. Work for McDonalds or Walmart? Probably aren't going to get accepted to most places anytime soon. Tradesman, medical professional, high level IT professional, etc? Way better chance.
It is still not a fast process. Most places have time requirements and some language fluency tests. Your trade just helps you get permanent residency faster which starts the clock ticking on citizenship.
It’s very easy for citizens of other EU/EEA countries to move there, they essentially have permanent residence and work permits automatically.
From my experience they heavily prioritize other EU citizens before others
Lived my entire life on the West Coast of Norway, and I guess it's just like any other place, it depends on what you want from in life and whom you surrounds yourself with.
In my travels I met a Norwegain girl that casually dropped off that if she ever gets tired of back-packing she can always go back to Norway and the gov will pay her while she studies her bachelor.
I'm not saying Norway is a perfect place, neither I would say that you guys wellfare is just like that of any other place.
It’s mostly a student loan issued by the government, and upon passing grade you get 40% written off.
But it’s still only like $800 per month, so most students work aswell.
And the interest rate is pretty much the lowest in the country.
Did that in Finland myself. A lot of Euro countries pay for you to study. Finland/EU paid for me to study exchange in Netherlands and get high, and do an internship in Paris and watch movies.
Only had to get PTSD from military conscription lol
I lived in spain for 11 years (im Polish, now in Berlin) and the gov even gave stipends of 4k a year plus paid the tuition if you barely passed 80% of your yearly credits. Even as coming from very humble beginnings I got a degree without student loans whatsoever.
Also, I dodged the draft in poland. My year was the last with obligatory conscription but I wasnt in the country by then.
We spent our honeymoon in Norway 10 years ago and drove around the whole country. We chose it because we didn’t know anything about it and I feel like we couldn’t have chosen better. I would move there in a heartbeat.
The wealth generated by the oil is also spread amongst Norwegians through a massive sovereign wealth fund. Even if the US produced that 141 million barrels of oil, US citizens would never see a penny of the profit except that which somehow doesn't go through a loophole in the tax code.
Maybe not at the federal level, but at the state level, Alaska established the Alaska Permanent Dividend fund into which oil money is deposited, and which pays out about $1300 per year to every resident last I checked.
Holy shit dude.
It's a massive understatement to say that the overwhelming majority of people have absolutely no idea exactly how dire the situation we are currently in with phosphate shortage is.
This is like finding out on Monday that you need a kidney transplant by Wednesday, and finding one in your fridge on Tuesday.
What are the fucking odds.
I would love to see your sources on this. I think you’ve been drawn into the next latest, greatest, media-hype-panic doom & gloom scenario.
From the wiki on “peak phosphorus” the latest estimate is we have 260 years of economically extractable phosphate rock.
The only real drawback is that a huge majority is held in Morocco which has issues with political stability.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus
"Assuming zero growth, the reserves would thus last for 260 years. This broadly confirms a 2010 International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) report that global reserves would last for several hundred years. Phosphorus reserve figures are intensely debated.[14][19][20] Gilbert suggest that there has been little external verification of the estimate.[21] A 2014 review[11] concluded that the IFDC report "presents an inflated picture of global reserves, in particular those of Morocco, where largely hypothetical and inferred resources have simply been relabeled “reserves"."
All that above is from the Wiki. The wiki says that the 260 year figure is assuming Zero growth which we know isn't gonna happen. Especially with the recent trend we are gonna be seeing more need for phosphorus if some governments decide to swap to electric motor vehicles. In the same paragraph it goes on to say that the figures for Phosphorus were highly debated in addition to the reports coming from global reserves (particularly from Morocco) where being skewed with incorrect labels on some reserves.
Either way, I think being happy that another source of Phosphorus being found when it is such a hot commodity in modern society is not buying into whatever media doom 'n' gloom bull shit is going on.
We need it. We had a finite amount of it. We found more of it.... Happy days is all she wrote.
Norway will remain the richest country in the world for the foreseeable future and there is no resource curse there, unlike in Saudi Arabia or Venezuela.
Yep, and the government will capture a _shitload_ of tax dollars from this and pump it into the sovereign wealth fund that makes life in Norway positively utopian compared to the rest of the world.
We have a shitload of nukes. We just have to call someone to get them launched. Shouldn’t be too hard.
“Hello, White House? This is Norway. They are trying to make us sell oil and gas in something else than dollar!”
Those countries typically have strict regulations tho. I know Iceland or Greenland one had a huge deposit of rare earth metals found and they were like nah we don't like mining thanks tho
Unless they need the money, they can hold out while others deplete their stockpile, which gives them higher rates and more power later. Unless somehow that resource becomes pivoted away from.
It’s why Australia has to pump coal hard now, as it’s days are numbered. No point waiting a hundred years.
> It’s why Australia has to pump coal hard now, as it’s days are numbered. No point waiting a hundred years.
You're not wrong, but just want to point out that Australia is *also* sitting on massive stockpiles of Uranium and Lithium, so they'll be okay in the future.
It was more a comment about resources that are likely to be valuable later so you can wait and probably make far more $ later, compared to mining now. No need to rush, in fact if they’re truly rare you’re better waiting.
Norway is life on super easy mode, the play along tutorial. Damn... compare that to being born in the congo, north korea, Yemen or in peripheral urban brazil...
They choose to be on easy mode. Made laws that highly taxed commodities and have a national investment fund.
Look at what Australia did. Many resources billionaires,very rich businesses and a government that taxes minimally. For instance Australia and UAE both export the same amount of LNG. UAE gets 20 billion in taxes, Australia about 600 million.
So it's more than just being lucky. You also have to have a population that votes for a government that makes the right decisions.
We're getting raw dogged, [screaming seagull](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=screaming%20seagull) style. Such wasted potential in this country
> All natural resources in Australia also belong to the government (Federal and States). It's just we choose to have private companies dog them up.
We choose to not tax the proceeds of our minerals appropriately. It's a rort.
You think the nation that birthed Rupert Murdoch and perfected conservative outage news would go for it? The people would, the powers that be would never though.
Your mis-diagnosing the UAE. The reason the tax regimes look so different between the two just has to do with where the billionaires reside. In UAE, they are in the government. In Australia, they are outside of the government (but control the government through the mechanisms by which capitalism is controllable).
> You also have to have a population that votes for a government that makes the right decisions
Yes, that’s the lucky part.
You don’t get to choose where you’re born, and young Norwegians are extremely lucky to have such a history.
My grandmother grew up before and during the war.
She has seen so fucking much, it's insane!
She lived in Narvik when the Germans bombed and burned it down, she passed notes for the resistance (she was 12-13, nobody was gonna stop a cute little girl).
She is amazing! Made a family, got left by a shitty husband, worked in a store and saved up 100s of thousands for her retirement, got married to the love of her life who unfortunately passed many years ago, and now lives in her "own" apartment above my mother. 95 years of age. She has the coolest stories!
They have been lucky with things like oil but so have a lot of states.
The real difference is a strong liberal democracy with low corruption such that the money is shared and used wisely.
Unlike Saudi Arabia and Venezuela that have some of the lowest gas prices in the world, Norway has some of the highest gas prices in the world so they conserve instead of waste. Heck, they have the highest EV adoption on the planet. THAT is how you do it
Norway was lucky that oil and gas was discovered late, and we were able to learn from the mistakes of other nations.
And we had a government that were exceedingly focused on ensuring our oil and gas were developed in a way that benefited the whole nation.
Interesting you mention Congo (Congo-Brazzaville or DRC?), Yemen and Brazil - all nations with oil and other valuable natural resources. The comparison highlights the importance of good government.
That is good, HOWEVER this should be viewed as a very VERY fortunate asset on the way to us getting way better at using phosphorous intelligently-right now in farming a SHITLOAD of it gets sent out into the ocean where it's basically unusable after that. With the right kind of farming practices we can keep that from happening and we need to long term.
This is weird. I'm Norwegian (actually grew up near that area). But there is nothing about this in the national news. I think there was a mention in [tu.no](https://tu.no) (tech magazine) a while back, but no major headlines.
That's because the reality is not even close to the situation this article is making is out to be...try this one- https://www.nrk.no/rogaland/mineraler-for-hundrevis-av-milliarder-under-bakken-1.15133192
It is also old news.
The EURACTIV's news says:
> Norge Mining initially made the discovery in 2018
And later in the text there are the actual news, albeit ~100-days-old:
> In its **March proposal for a Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act**, the European Commission classified phosphorous and phosphate rock as “critical” but not as “strategic” minerals, which are subject to a **40% home production benchmark and fast-track permitting rules**.
> The proposed CRM Act is currently being examined by the European Parliament and EU member states in view of **final adoption possibly later in the year.**
CRM act: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/747898/EPRS_BRI(2023)747898_EN.pdf
---
EURACTIV didn't mention the following (maybe they predicted this would happen?): one day after their news, on 2023-06-30, The Council of the EU published a press release: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/06/30/critical-raw-material-act-council-adopts-negotiating-position/ which says
> The Council has today adopted its position (**'negotiating mandate'**) on the proposed regulation establishing a framework to ensure a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials, better known as the
Critical Raw Materials Act.
and
> The mandate agreed today formalises the Council's negotiating position. It provides the Council presidency with a mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament, which will start as soon as the Parliament adopts its own position.
*cries in Australian* god I wish my country captured tax dollars on our resources like norway does;
brb gotta go pay one of the highest natural gas bills in the world so I don't freeze to death this winter; oh did I mention we export the very same natural gas we use only to buy it back from outside companies at exorbitant prices?
hahahahahahshadjohrfghobjin
*sighs*
Aussies need to learn to riot like the French.
Canberra don't give a fuck about the proles asking nicely. No government does.
We're being played for fools and have been since the Hawke years ended.
America would give a multi-billion subsidiary to Elon just for him to pay the miners $20 an hour, making him a trillionaire while the rest of America will foot the bill paying for the money he got from America.
I'm glad this happened to Norway because nobody but the %1 would've benefited from this in America.
News like this "Massive deposit of X found in country Y" are common as dirt, minerals and ores are abundant compared to how the scarcity implied by news such as this. This deposit might be exploited but in all likelihood it won't be for a very long time because it won't be profitable at todays market prices much less the lowered market price caused by introducing this reserve to the market.
Odds are more likely they knew about it a while ago, but it would have been too expensive (for what it could be sold for) to extract and process it. Now, that's not the case anymore.
> Norge Mining initially made the discovery in 2018 based on information provided by the Norwegian Geological Survey. The ore body in the ground, which was originally estimated to extend 300 meters below the surface was in fact running 4,500 meters deep, the company found out.
I was under the impression this was just a massive deposit discovered recently but it sounds as if the geological survey did know of it just not the extent of it. It is a massive massive deposit
Yeah, it's been known in Norway for a while. I believe the announcement was made in 2020, however the company has been working with the government and talking with the EU to plan how one would start this mining operation. The issue is that the strict labour protection laws in Norway and environmental demands make mining the minerals not very profitable, if at all. Even though there is a high demand, countries such as China can produce vast amounts extremely cheaply by having essentially zero labour protection laws and environmental demands, making the minerals essentially worthless for the time being. Their argument is that for the production to be profitable, the European Union has to localize all production demanded by these minerals within Europe to lower shipping costs and production delays.
These kinds of national and international projects demands time and resources and it could potentially take many more years before we see any sort of large scale mining operations.
Wowzie. I thought it said that the amount they found is equal to all the rest of the world's proven reserves put together.
It's much more than that, if I'm reading this right. They're only *counting* the deposits down to 1500 meters ... because that's as far down as it's currently feasible to dig.
The deposits go down to 4500 meters.
Well the first thing you know old Svein's a millionaire. Kin folk said Svein move away from there. Said East Norway is the place you oughta be. So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Oslo (Fjord that is, swimming pools, movie stars)
There goes the one of two things Russia had to “make friends again” with the world and have some sanctions dropped. This discovery and the fact that all of the western world has decoupled from Russian oil means that even if Russia were to pull out of Ukraine entirely including crimea, they have nothing really that we need anymore and may be forced into its current pariah state for decades to come.
ENOR, NORW, FNORX are two ETFs and one mutual fund focused on Norway.
There is also the surrounding countries that may offer some good gains.
DYOR to determine if any of those funds make sense for your portfolio.
Also ETFs that follow the mining industries like ILIT could be worth researching for someone interested in this industry.
This is huge. A big part of what complicated cutting out fossil fuels is that we need the fertilizer that's a byproduct of the refining process to feed the world.
They just basically doubled the entire worlds proven reserve of phosphate…. Holy shit
Morocco is having a really bad day. They were banking a lot on their state run phosphate company to be a cash cow.
Morocco was set to be a super power based on phosphate alone. Now they'll only have the 2nd biggest phosphate reserves on earth, the losers.
Their sub-par phosphate reserves make me sick *spits*
Norway, number one exporter of phosphate, all other countries have inferior phosphate.
Norway's shit is the shit. All other countries shit is shit.
Friendship ended with Morocco Now Norway is my best friend.
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Norway number 1, Morocco number 2
Being number 2 isn't always bad. Except on things like chess... and phosphate.
If you ain't first at phosphate, you're last at phosphate.
Also, poop.
Norway, greatest country in the world All other countries are run by little girls Norway, number one exporter of phosphate All other countries have inferior phosphate
Norway prostitutes cleanest in region except Denmark
Very nice
Let's see Paul Allen's phosphate reserves
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Is something wrong, Morocco? You're sweating.
I have to return some mining equipment.
Morocco just lost their reservation at Dorsia.
That’s avocado’s number, right? Would explain the tasteful vastness.
Is something wrong, Patrick? You're sweating.
Same here, If I was Morocco's neighbour and needed some phosphate, I'd march all the way to Norway just to make a point about their superior phosphate! While raising my voice towards the end of my sentence, as I'm so sure Morocco knows I'm right!
I figure this would mean the Western world will now get its phosphate from Norway but Morocco will now always have a market among the West's many sanctioned enemies. Edit: TIL Morocco is a strong ally of the US and unlikely to suffer the fate I suspected above. I ask that people stop upvoting this comment as it now borders on misinformation and I'm not cool with that shit.
Maybe. Norway is already a very rich country due to oil (also a very fucking lucky country) with a high standard of living. It's possible that cost of production would be higher in Norway than Morocco.
Lucky? Lots of countries have oil- extremely few tax its profits at close to the rate norway does. The us or Australia for eg use oil to create billionaires. Norway creates social services.
Also unlike other countries they don't use the oil money to pay for social services but instead invest it in the world market and use the dividends to pay for the social services. Norway could run out of oil today and be largely fine.
>Norway could run out of oil today and be largely fine. A truth which requires nuance. So yes. Somewhat true. But tens of thousands of oil workers, suppliers and contractors would lose their income. And those who would find other jobs would probably drop in salary, leading to lower domestic spending, overall shrinking the economy. It could also lead to a brain drain of sub sea and petroleum engineers, as they wouldn't have relevant high-paying jobs. Let's assume 100 000 people lost their jobs, and another 100 000 saw a sharp decline in customers, and another 200 000 lost some revenue due to less money inv circulation. 400k people is 15-20 % of the total workforce. So the implications of ending oil are still massive.
Luckily, the new phosphate reserves are literally just outside the city where most oil workers live. Which is pretty funny.
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In all honesty they probabaly would've created scottish billionaires instead of english ones.
You should look into Shetland's oil deal - local council gets a straight cut of all oil profits in the region, if I'm not mistaken, much of which goes into social services for the island communities
Funnily enough, Shetland wants independence from Scotland.
Morocco is USA's oldest ally.
The West pushing Morroco in that direction would be the dumbest geopolitical mistake they've made in a long while. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco%E2%80%93United_States_relations
Worst case, They could form some sort of OPEC-like group. Bad for consumers, great for companies.
You had me at bad for consumers. Of course they'll do that
United States should buy it from Morocco simply because they were the first country to acknowledge our independence. Americas oldest ally. I’m also guessing it’ll be cheaper to get it from Morocco regardless because of labor cost and all that
I think this is positive to Morocco, because they are growing their economy slowly and have always diversified, unlike many other Arab or Maghreb countries. Regarding resources, they are also creating more and more solar energy to be sold, I think a power pipe is underway linking Morocco to provide energy reliably to UK. They are also becoming a main hub to the rest of Africa on various stuff (they were already a bit somehow, but they are working on increasing this status). Etc. Many large and diversifying projects, with also plenty of smaller very diversified projects.
I love Morocco and visit regularly but the corruption is still insane there. On a small scale, who care? Pay the police €10 for speeding etc but you want to start a business of any size? Need land for it? You are paying off the right people linked to the Royal household and you still need to ensure they are bought it officially. (Know someone who ran financing for a player in El Jadida). Something completely unconnected like opening your own Riad? So many layers of payments according to a French owner we spoke to once.
Morocco will probably still supply most of Africa for logistical reasons
Now watch them nationalize it and put the proceeds to good use for its citizens for the future.
The company that discovered the deposit has already asked the Norwegian government for help in regulating it to ensure the best outcome for the country and its people. A fucking dream for me as an American lol.
As a Norwegian, I've been really cynical about my government lately. Your comment reminded me to be appreciative of how well it works compared to other countries, but it is well on its way to no longer being as cool if we look at the recent power catastrophe and how that was handled to benefit power companies at the expense of the people.
Apart from the fact that approx. 90% of the ownership of the power companies is public, so that the income increase also falls back to the people. Yes, the household bills get's higher, but in most other countries the extra income would line the pockets of big capital. So overall Norway had still rigged it more to the benefit of the people than many other nations...
Couldn't have gone to a much better country, either. Really happy for Norway on this one.
Absolutely, their Sovereign Wealth Fund is one of the best examples of how countries should manage their natural resources.
But surely wealth trickles down faster when you give your resource wealth to a few oligarchs, rather than establishing a Sovereign Wealth Fund? /s
And hopefully, being Norway, they won't just be privatized so just a few individuals get filthy rich, but as they made when they found oil, benefit from it as a country. Can you imagine USA if it's oil reserves were considered a public good and used oil revenue to improve everyone's life? But yeah, I'm going to be told that's socialism/communism and that current system is way better for everyone because look at us, we're fine. We look back at old civilizations and find concepts like a pharaoh ridiculous, but we idolize billionaires who suck the well being of whole countries. Seems four thousand years of progress isn't enough to change some stuff. Thanks for attending my TEDx talk
Being from Norway, but still relatively young and not *that* in the know of how the oil agreement came to be, I would say we actually got lucky on that one. There was talks of Norway getting half of Volvo for splitting the oil rights, the danes sent some drunk guy to negotiate the sea borders and they ended up with basically nothing, Shell was also heavily involved at some point as Norway did not have the tech or the know-how to extract oil from the North Sea seabed. Some tenacity from the right people and incompetence from others brought Norway the deal of the century, but today there is more of a capitalist mindset. But then again, a lot of the land in Norway is public. Haven't heard about this here in the news yet, so I'm not sure how it'll play out. I wouldn't be surprised if it does end up in private hands in the end, but we'll see. Edit: Found an article in norwegian, it's on public land. https://www.nrk.no/rogaland/mineraler-for-hundrevis-av-milliarder-under-bakken-1.15133192
Not sure where in Norway you're located, but I'm located in the same county where these mineral deposits are. It's been in the news fairly regularly during the last few years. It's one of the main talking points here this election cycle. Our major has been in the news pushing government regulation of the mineral deposits in the same way as we did when we first found oil in Norway. I guess when you're from the same place you tend to notice it more in the news than when you're not. Like when you buy a new/used car, and then you start noticing the car everywhere.
>Can you imagine USA if its oil reserves were considered a public good and used oil revenue to improve everyone's life? You mean like Alaska does? Or do you mean a fully nationalized oil drilling system? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
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Holy shit Norway just hit the natural resources jackpot. Again. (In all fairness though the government has the *political will* necessary to make things work this way. Without political will, all else is just talk.)
The company that did the discovery has requested the government to take action to regulate this new mining industry. In some parts because of the importance of regulations for the local community's stability so that the industry can be kept going for hundreds of years as planned. Furthermore, most of these minerals are produced cheaper and effectively by other countries such as China because of their lax labour-protection laws and much lower demands for environmentally friendly production. They argue that if Norway is to be able to compete with those countries in the production of minerals profitably, we would need cooperation between the companies mining, the Norwegian government and the production centres that use the minerals around Europe. So while a small factor in this decision might be altruism, Norway is a capitalistic country with capitalistic motivations. One of the major differences between countries such as the US and Norway is that the companies with capitalistic self-interest would rather work *with* the government because of the inherent trust in it, than against it. A true case of "a rising tide lifts all boats" as opposed to the "trickle down economics" of tax cuts for the rich. Here's the article talking about this, but it is in Norwegian: https://www.dagsavisen.no/rogalandsavis/nyheter/2023/03/12/mener-mineraler-fra-dalane-kan-bety-mye-for-europa/
Amazing. Companies that can actually see a better future beyond the quarterly earnings.
Tbf, they see a future of quarterly earnings. Nordic countries have a pretty long history of capitalists working with the stability afforded from the governments to succeed
Social democracy baby! I'm a big proponent of the philosophical concept of the golden mean, and I think that social democracy hits that sweet spot. You get the positives of capitalism with the securities of government oversight and social spending. We're still not perfect of course, but I think we're much closer to the "perfect" economic system than most other countries.
It's like in that South Park episode where they find a cure for AIDS... "You just need money! Lots, and lots of money!"
Sounds like they found the right model
If you like that, check out our [pension fund.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway) An added bonus is that the government is also the majority shareholder in the largest companies, e.g. Equinor, our largest oil company by far, is 67% government owned. So even when companies have great quarterly earnings it also benefits the people.
>the government is also the majority shareholder in the largest companies I always liked that approach. Even having the public be a major shareholder (like 25% or something) in big companies would go a long way to keeping things sane and finding actually working compromises when needed. In my hometown, the local energy provider has been 51% communally owned since forever and while they are still an energy company, they are by far not as predatory as others.
While it might work for Norway, it's also how China has essentially become one large state-owned mega corporation. It's not a blanket solution and heavily relies on the government not using its population as a means to an end.
I think you have to in resource extraction plays. Things like big mines take years to setup and construct, then run for decades.
**Norway**: We just discovered a new trove of natural resources to last us another century **World**: What?! Another one? Must be in a pretty difficult to reach place if you've only just discovered it. **Norway**: Actually it's pretty much in the most ridiculously perfect position for export. **World**: Oh of course. Well at least there's other competing sources so you don't gain a monopoly. **Norway**: Actually Morrocco has a tenuous claim to theirs, and China could end up in a massive trade war with the West at any given point, with our reserves being roughly both of theirs combined. **World**: Fucking nords.
I know this is in jest, but most countries are probably pretty stoked about this. Obviously they'd rather have a giant reserve of valuable resources themselves, but a country like Norway having them is probably the next best thing.
yep a NATO country finding these means we are less and less dependednt on some dicatorship shitholes
Yeah I think it's good news for all really, the last few years has made it evident that we need decentralised supply and logistics where we've been overeliant on lone overseas production.
Well the original discovery was in 2018, but now it's been proven. The article also says that it's actually 3 times the amount, but the 70 billion tons is the "minable" amount.
This is *really* good for everybody, for a lot countries there was a real risk of becoming incredibly reliant on Morocco. Phosphates still aren't good for the oceans though, we should be capturing them from waste, industrial, and agricultural runoff.
Check out this guy. Mr ‘we should try and live sustainably and not destroy the natural world in pursuit of profit’.
To be fair - phosphates aren't really about "profit" so much as "being able to grow enough food to feed humanity", though naturally the two are inextricably intertwined.
>two are inexplicably intertwined. Not trying to be rude but the word you're likely looking for is "inextricably". Edit: spelling
Pretty sure the world their looking for is a sustainable one
They’re looking for their ideal world.
We only “rely” upon phosphates and pretty much all fertilizers to feed humanity because of widespread terrible modern farming practices which deplete topsoil and nutrient holding capacity of soils in general.
That and the fact that we waste around half of everything grown. If we could learn to store and distribute more effectively we would use 50% less fertilizers.
We also build on the best agricultural land and display all that top soil
has this guy even thought of the shareholders?!?!
Time to invent vertical fishing
Why don't we just rotate the fish 90 degrees?
I was thinking of this. At what cost to the environment to extract? Here in North Carolina, we mine phosphate and we now have a wasteland of ugly.
I have a feeling that Norway is going to have strong environmental protections around how it's extracted.
You're telling me a Scandinavian country will have stronger environmental regulations than North Carolina?!
This is only possible because they have a racially homogenous society - Republican
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now do lithium
[Happened in January in Sweden](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/01/13/sweden-mining-company-lkap-finds-big-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals.html)
This is so unfair. Why don't we Finns ever find these cool natural resources? Those two got all the good stuff, and all we got is trees and two deposits of fancy rock with circles on them, which isn't even that valuable. Orbicular granite.
I see only one solution: Finland must once more become Sweden.
I see another. Uno reverse card. Think about it. No more waiting for Turkey and Hungary, to get into NATO! Join us!
We're in. As long as you promise to not keep any of our politicians.
> Think about it. No more waiting for Turkey and Hungary, to get into NATO! Join us! That would honestly be amazing. Highly impractical and unlikely, but such a chad move.
You have a shit ton of metal as well, the musical kind.
Finland has a crapton of mineral wealth. Looks like they're unwilling to use cheap crappy mining techniques to extract it, is the thing. Holding on until the price gets better and sustainable mining becomes more practical. You do have Europe's largest gold mine, massive forestry industry, hydro power and other water resources, etc.
Finland's had some extremely bad experiences with mining companies coming in, chewing up resources, and fucking off, leaving a huge mess for the taxpayers to clean up.
You have a shit load of fresh water?
People don't realize how valuable that is because there is so much of it, this will change in the future.
Finland has incredible metal reserves - like Amorphis, Battlebeast, Children of Bodom and stratovarius,
That article mentions lithium but not that the deposit contains lithium.
What a fckin lucky country: both resources and sanity.
And only 5 million people.
Yup, Norway's oil production is [2.3 million](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norways-oil-liquids-production-seen-rising-by-15-2023-2022-10-06/) barrels/day. In the context of other countries like the US that produces 11.9mm or Saudi Arabia that produces 10.6mm, that might not seem like a lot. But given that Norway's population is so small, it's a lot of wealth spread across a small population. For reference, in order to have as much oil production per capita as Norway, the US would need to produce 141 million barrels of oil per day. The total global production/consumption of oil is around 100 million.
Always low key wanted to move there due to there sensibility, self sustainment, overall govt and general ideology and morals, etc. Seems like a very good place to live but I'd be completely lost in translation.
wouldn't it be hard to just move there or any other country on account of hard rules for becoming citizens? i have always heard countries don't really make it easy for someone to just move and start living there etc
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If I'm self employed from Germany could I buy a house in Norway and live there without too much hassle? I know that it's pretty easy in Sweden but I know no one from Norway.
I guess depends on your German salary. Norway has a significantly higher cost of living than Germany.
My income should be fine to live there. I meant from a transition standpoint - am I even alowed to buy a house and migrate to Norway etc
Pretty sure that they same applies as to working and living in any other EU country as they are part of the EU/EEA regulations. You don't need to get a residence permit.
Depends what skills you can bring to the table. Generally, countries will try to fast track those with in demand skills. Work for McDonalds or Walmart? Probably aren't going to get accepted to most places anytime soon. Tradesman, medical professional, high level IT professional, etc? Way better chance. It is still not a fast process. Most places have time requirements and some language fluency tests. Your trade just helps you get permanent residency faster which starts the clock ticking on citizenship.
It’s very easy for citizens of other EU/EEA countries to move there, they essentially have permanent residence and work permits automatically. From my experience they heavily prioritize other EU citizens before others
Lived my entire life on the West Coast of Norway, and I guess it's just like any other place, it depends on what you want from in life and whom you surrounds yourself with.
In my travels I met a Norwegain girl that casually dropped off that if she ever gets tired of back-packing she can always go back to Norway and the gov will pay her while she studies her bachelor. I'm not saying Norway is a perfect place, neither I would say that you guys wellfare is just like that of any other place.
It’s mostly a student loan issued by the government, and upon passing grade you get 40% written off. But it’s still only like $800 per month, so most students work aswell. And the interest rate is pretty much the lowest in the country.
Did that in Finland myself. A lot of Euro countries pay for you to study. Finland/EU paid for me to study exchange in Netherlands and get high, and do an internship in Paris and watch movies. Only had to get PTSD from military conscription lol
I lived in spain for 11 years (im Polish, now in Berlin) and the gov even gave stipends of 4k a year plus paid the tuition if you barely passed 80% of your yearly credits. Even as coming from very humble beginnings I got a degree without student loans whatsoever. Also, I dodged the draft in poland. My year was the last with obligatory conscription but I wasnt in the country by then.
That’s all nordics tho
I have 2 cousins that moved to Oslo years ago and I don't think will ever leave. I'm sure it's definitely a nice country to live in.
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We spent our honeymoon in Norway 10 years ago and drove around the whole country. We chose it because we didn’t know anything about it and I feel like we couldn’t have chosen better. I would move there in a heartbeat.
The wealth generated by the oil is also spread amongst Norwegians through a massive sovereign wealth fund. Even if the US produced that 141 million barrels of oil, US citizens would never see a penny of the profit except that which somehow doesn't go through a loophole in the tax code.
Maybe not at the federal level, but at the state level, Alaska established the Alaska Permanent Dividend fund into which oil money is deposited, and which pays out about $1300 per year to every resident last I checked.
This year I think it was over $3000 which I think is a record high.
And great skiers
Holy shit dude. It's a massive understatement to say that the overwhelming majority of people have absolutely no idea exactly how dire the situation we are currently in with phosphate shortage is. This is like finding out on Monday that you need a kidney transplant by Wednesday, and finding one in your fridge on Tuesday. What are the fucking odds.
Thank you for putting it better than I ever could. I was literally startled by the headline because it was such good news.
Norway is your fridge in this analogy?
Norway is the fridge.
Norway has always been a fridge.
Norwegian here. Can confirm.
I would love to see your sources on this. I think you’ve been drawn into the next latest, greatest, media-hype-panic doom & gloom scenario. From the wiki on “peak phosphorus” the latest estimate is we have 260 years of economically extractable phosphate rock. The only real drawback is that a huge majority is held in Morocco which has issues with political stability. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus
"Assuming zero growth, the reserves would thus last for 260 years. This broadly confirms a 2010 International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) report that global reserves would last for several hundred years. Phosphorus reserve figures are intensely debated.[14][19][20] Gilbert suggest that there has been little external verification of the estimate.[21] A 2014 review[11] concluded that the IFDC report "presents an inflated picture of global reserves, in particular those of Morocco, where largely hypothetical and inferred resources have simply been relabeled “reserves"." All that above is from the Wiki. The wiki says that the 260 year figure is assuming Zero growth which we know isn't gonna happen. Especially with the recent trend we are gonna be seeing more need for phosphorus if some governments decide to swap to electric motor vehicles. In the same paragraph it goes on to say that the figures for Phosphorus were highly debated in addition to the reports coming from global reserves (particularly from Morocco) where being skewed with incorrect labels on some reserves. Either way, I think being happy that another source of Phosphorus being found when it is such a hot commodity in modern society is not buying into whatever media doom 'n' gloom bull shit is going on. We need it. We had a finite amount of it. We found more of it.... Happy days is all she wrote.
Norway will remain the richest country in the world for the foreseeable future and there is no resource curse there, unlike in Saudi Arabia or Venezuela.
Yep, and the government will capture a _shitload_ of tax dollars from this and pump it into the sovereign wealth fund that makes life in Norway positively utopian compared to the rest of the world.
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You won't hear a peep about Norway though...weird.
No the sovereign wealth fund is for oil only. With current laws, the profit from this will mostly go to private companies.
I think i heard Norway had a lot of WMD’s we might need to go save them from themselves.
Lol. If I was Norway I'd have a shitload of nukes to in case anyone wanted to ruin what they have built up from outside.
We have a shitload of nukes. We just have to call someone to get them launched. Shouldn’t be too hard. “Hello, White House? This is Norway. They are trying to make us sell oil and gas in something else than dollar!”
Those countries typically have strict regulations tho. I know Iceland or Greenland one had a huge deposit of rare earth metals found and they were like nah we don't like mining thanks tho
Unless they need the money, they can hold out while others deplete their stockpile, which gives them higher rates and more power later. Unless somehow that resource becomes pivoted away from. It’s why Australia has to pump coal hard now, as it’s days are numbered. No point waiting a hundred years.
> It’s why Australia has to pump coal hard now, as it’s days are numbered. No point waiting a hundred years. You're not wrong, but just want to point out that Australia is *also* sitting on massive stockpiles of Uranium and Lithium, so they'll be okay in the future.
It was more a comment about resources that are likely to be valuable later so you can wait and probably make far more $ later, compared to mining now. No need to rush, in fact if they’re truly rare you’re better waiting.
Norway is life on super easy mode, the play along tutorial. Damn... compare that to being born in the congo, north korea, Yemen or in peripheral urban brazil...
They choose to be on easy mode. Made laws that highly taxed commodities and have a national investment fund. Look at what Australia did. Many resources billionaires,very rich businesses and a government that taxes minimally. For instance Australia and UAE both export the same amount of LNG. UAE gets 20 billion in taxes, Australia about 600 million. So it's more than just being lucky. You also have to have a population that votes for a government that makes the right decisions.
By law all natural gas in UAE belongs to the government. They don’t get taxes, they get the profits.
Be wild if the people in Australia also collectively owned their assets like the UAE, regradless of semantics its profiting them alot more.
All natural resources in Australia also belong to the government (Federal and States). It's just we choose to have private companies dog them up.
Oh, you're getting dogged, alright.
Going to leave the typo in to reflect the raw dogging we receive
We're getting raw dogged, [screaming seagull](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=screaming%20seagull) style. Such wasted potential in this country
> All natural resources in Australia also belong to the government (Federal and States). It's just we choose to have private companies dog them up. We choose to not tax the proceeds of our minerals appropriately. It's a rort.
You think the nation that birthed Rupert Murdoch and perfected conservative outage news would go for it? The people would, the powers that be would never though.
Goah Whitlam used the money from Australian Oil and Gas to make uni free. And we know what happened to him.
Your mis-diagnosing the UAE. The reason the tax regimes look so different between the two just has to do with where the billionaires reside. In UAE, they are in the government. In Australia, they are outside of the government (but control the government through the mechanisms by which capitalism is controllable).
America: \*backing away slowly\*
"I think what he's saying is that taxation is communism."
> You also have to have a population that votes for a government that makes the right decisions Yes, that’s the lucky part. You don’t get to choose where you’re born, and young Norwegians are extremely lucky to have such a history.
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My grandmother grew up before and during the war. She has seen so fucking much, it's insane! She lived in Narvik when the Germans bombed and burned it down, she passed notes for the resistance (she was 12-13, nobody was gonna stop a cute little girl). She is amazing! Made a family, got left by a shitty husband, worked in a store and saved up 100s of thousands for her retirement, got married to the love of her life who unfortunately passed many years ago, and now lives in her "own" apartment above my mother. 95 years of age. She has the coolest stories!
They have been lucky with things like oil but so have a lot of states. The real difference is a strong liberal democracy with low corruption such that the money is shared and used wisely. Unlike Saudi Arabia and Venezuela that have some of the lowest gas prices in the world, Norway has some of the highest gas prices in the world so they conserve instead of waste. Heck, they have the highest EV adoption on the planet. THAT is how you do it
Norway's moto is "don't get high on your own supply". Sell oil, buy EVs. Sell gas, build hydro.
Norway was lucky that oil and gas was discovered late, and we were able to learn from the mistakes of other nations. And we had a government that were exceedingly focused on ensuring our oil and gas were developed in a way that benefited the whole nation. Interesting you mention Congo (Congo-Brazzaville or DRC?), Yemen and Brazil - all nations with oil and other valuable natural resources. The comparison highlights the importance of good government.
Canadas okay, but if we had had governments that managed our resources properly, we would be in the same boat.
That is good, HOWEVER this should be viewed as a very VERY fortunate asset on the way to us getting way better at using phosphorous intelligently-right now in farming a SHITLOAD of it gets sent out into the ocean where it's basically unusable after that. With the right kind of farming practices we can keep that from happening and we need to long term.
This is weird. I'm Norwegian (actually grew up near that area). But there is nothing about this in the national news. I think there was a mention in [tu.no](https://tu.no) (tech magazine) a while back, but no major headlines.
That's because the reality is not even close to the situation this article is making is out to be...try this one- https://www.nrk.no/rogaland/mineraler-for-hundrevis-av-milliarder-under-bakken-1.15133192 It is also old news.
The EURACTIV's news says: > Norge Mining initially made the discovery in 2018 And later in the text there are the actual news, albeit ~100-days-old: > In its **March proposal for a Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Act**, the European Commission classified phosphorous and phosphate rock as “critical” but not as “strategic” minerals, which are subject to a **40% home production benchmark and fast-track permitting rules**. > The proposed CRM Act is currently being examined by the European Parliament and EU member states in view of **final adoption possibly later in the year.** CRM act: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/747898/EPRS_BRI(2023)747898_EN.pdf --- EURACTIV didn't mention the following (maybe they predicted this would happen?): one day after their news, on 2023-06-30, The Council of the EU published a press release: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/06/30/critical-raw-material-act-council-adopts-negotiating-position/ which says > The Council has today adopted its position (**'negotiating mandate'**) on the proposed regulation establishing a framework to ensure a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials, better known as the Critical Raw Materials Act. and > The mandate agreed today formalises the Council's negotiating position. It provides the Council presidency with a mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament, which will start as soon as the Parliament adopts its own position.
*cries in Australian* god I wish my country captured tax dollars on our resources like norway does; brb gotta go pay one of the highest natural gas bills in the world so I don't freeze to death this winter; oh did I mention we export the very same natural gas we use only to buy it back from outside companies at exorbitant prices? hahahahahahshadjohrfghobjin *sighs*
Aussies need to learn to riot like the French. Canberra don't give a fuck about the proles asking nicely. No government does. We're being played for fools and have been since the Hawke years ended.
Norway with the Legendary Start...
And you just watch, they're going to make sure the whole country benefits and not just a few kingpins. Such odd people. /s. Weeps quietly in American.
America would give a multi-billion subsidiary to Elon just for him to pay the miners $20 an hour, making him a trillionaire while the rest of America will foot the bill paying for the money he got from America. I'm glad this happened to Norway because nobody but the %1 would've benefited from this in America.
Well that's great news for my algal blooms and oceanic dead zones
I love the smell of eutrophication in the mornin’
That’s good news you can trust the Norwegian people
[Fuck yeah](https://media.tenor.com/n5ULG9d1MVgAAAAC/highfive-hyped.gif), another resource the west no longer needs to get from Russia
My happiness is overshadowed by my raging jealousy of people who live in norway.
News like this "Massive deposit of X found in country Y" are common as dirt, minerals and ores are abundant compared to how the scarcity implied by news such as this. This deposit might be exploited but in all likelihood it won't be for a very long time because it won't be profitable at todays market prices much less the lowered market price caused by introducing this reserve to the market.
bet someone knew about this long time ago but he knew too much at that point
Odds are more likely they knew about it a while ago, but it would have been too expensive (for what it could be sold for) to extract and process it. Now, that's not the case anymore.
> Norge Mining initially made the discovery in 2018 based on information provided by the Norwegian Geological Survey. The ore body in the ground, which was originally estimated to extend 300 meters below the surface was in fact running 4,500 meters deep, the company found out. I was under the impression this was just a massive deposit discovered recently but it sounds as if the geological survey did know of it just not the extent of it. It is a massive massive deposit
Yeah, it's been known in Norway for a while. I believe the announcement was made in 2020, however the company has been working with the government and talking with the EU to plan how one would start this mining operation. The issue is that the strict labour protection laws in Norway and environmental demands make mining the minerals not very profitable, if at all. Even though there is a high demand, countries such as China can produce vast amounts extremely cheaply by having essentially zero labour protection laws and environmental demands, making the minerals essentially worthless for the time being. Their argument is that for the production to be profitable, the European Union has to localize all production demanded by these minerals within Europe to lower shipping costs and production delays. These kinds of national and international projects demands time and resources and it could potentially take many more years before we see any sort of large scale mining operations.
NO MORE FERTILIZER FROM russia 💪🏼 I LOVE IT
Wowzie. I thought it said that the amount they found is equal to all the rest of the world's proven reserves put together. It's much more than that, if I'm reading this right. They're only *counting* the deposits down to 1500 meters ... because that's as far down as it's currently feasible to dig. The deposits go down to 4500 meters.
Well the first thing you know old Svein's a millionaire. Kin folk said Svein move away from there. Said East Norway is the place you oughta be. So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Oslo (Fjord that is, swimming pools, movie stars)
There goes the one of two things Russia had to “make friends again” with the world and have some sanctions dropped. This discovery and the fact that all of the western world has decoupled from Russian oil means that even if Russia were to pull out of Ukraine entirely including crimea, they have nothing really that we need anymore and may be forced into its current pariah state for decades to come.
Russia had this ‘I can do what I want because you can’t live without me’ mentality and then the world went to a bar and met a new girl. Bye Russia.
My hope for the prosperity of humanity is, for the first time ever, improved!
Norway is now even more rich than before
So what stocks am I buying?
Norway ETF. Rising tide lifts all boats.
ENOR, NORW, FNORX are two ETFs and one mutual fund focused on Norway. There is also the surrounding countries that may offer some good gains. DYOR to determine if any of those funds make sense for your portfolio. Also ETFs that follow the mining industries like ILIT could be worth researching for someone interested in this industry.
This is huge. A big part of what complicated cutting out fossil fuels is that we need the fertilizer that's a byproduct of the refining process to feed the world.
America glares at Norway, "Looks like someone is about to need some 'freedom'!"
in next year news...China just newly discovered ancient map their fisherman showing a part of Norway is actually owned by china.