Offshore Industries as Growth Sector: The Norwegian Case

Abstract

Writers on Norwegian economic history often claim that marine and maritime industries, i.e., the offshore sector, played a major role for value creation in the Norwegian economy for centuries. However, little has been done to quantify the sector’s contribution to the economy. The present paper seeks to quantify the size of the key offshore industries compared to GDP and exports. To do so it has been necessary to draw on new historical national account calculations in addition to compute several new series.

Based on these calculations we find that the offshore sector made up a significant and important part of Norwegian GDP, and a dominant part of exports, 1816-2021. The key offshore industries were first fishing, thereafter ocean transport, and finally petroleum extraction. The sector’s overall size of the Norwegian economy has been quite stable in a long-term perspective, but with an increasing GDP share after the takeoff of oil and gas extraction from the continental shelf in the 1970s.