The oil and gas industry has the potential to stimulate significant economic growth, and energy-rich countries have increasing expectations of local content and involvement in our activities. Our aim is to make investments that create and maximise shared value - investments that the host countries where we operate can benefit from, as well as our shareholders.
We value the importance of local content and are constantly searching for opportunities to work with our host country partners to develop sustainable and cost-effective projects delivered on schedule. We are proud of our Norwegian heritage and success in developing local businesses' capacity, skills and technology to compete at the highest international levels. Drawing on this experience, we aim to be a preferred partner for many of our host governments around the world.
Hiring and buying locally is a particularly effective way of generating local content and contributing to development. It has a direct impact on the local economy, builds on and enhances local capacity, and creates jobs. We therefore aim to recruit locally and offer a safe working environment to all our employees, and provide attractive training opportunities building on local capacity and skills. We also promote local sourcing and look for investment opportunities to develop sustainable and competitive local enterprises.
We demand high standards of our employees, contractors and suppliers. Such standards, found in our values statement and corporate policies on ethics, social responsibility and HSE, extend to all parties that work for or with our company. We also recognise that, in many of the countries where we work, local suppliers may not currently meet these strict standards. We are therefore also committed to working with suppliers to improve their skills and capacity in these areas.
Hiring locally and building capacity
In many of our non-OECD countries, we are working to achieve a higher proportion of national staff, including at management levels. In these countries, on average, local staff currently make up 67% of staff and 37% of management. Overall in StatoilHydro, we are also working to increase the proportion of non-Norwegians. In 2008, this proportion increased slightly to 42% from 41% the year before; among staff in management positions, the share of non-Norwegians remained constant at 37%.
Acknowledging that the oil and gas industry requires highly specialised skills which take time to develop locally, in many countries - including in Algeria, Russia and Venezuela - we are also developing dedicated training programmes in collaboration with local institutions to enable capacity-building and recruitment of local expertise.
In Algeria, for example, we are working in collaboration with Sonatrach, the national oil company, and the Algerian Petroleum Institute (IAP) to improve technical and vocational training in the country, as well as on implementing an adapted version of StatoilHydro's Safe Behaviour Programme ('Kollegaprogrammet') for all of Sonatrach's 120,000 employees.
Local procurement and supplier development
We aim to source locally and are working to establish targets and programmes to increase local procurement in many countries where we have an active presence. In 2008, we spent an estimated NOK 3,1 billion on goods and services from companies based in non-OECD countries; this is up from an estimated NOK 2.5 billion in the previous year.
To achieve our aim of increasing local procurement, we are also supporting capacity-building initiatives and investing in local enterprises to provide them with the right skills and expertise, standards and certifications required for them to compete successfully and work in the oil and gas industry.
In Nigeria, for example, we are working together with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and the Petroleum Training Development Fund (PTDF), supporting a project managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) aimed at increasing the competence and capabilities of small and medium-sized fabricators.
