Right now, after about 30 hours of travel, I am in my hotel room in Hammerfest, Norway. Hammerfest, one of the northernmost cities in the world, is about 600 km north of the Arctic Circle. It was attacked by the British during the Napoleonic Wars, used by the Nazis as a major U-boat base, and is now the center of liquified natural gas production in the Arctic. Since my body clock is saying, "sleep you idiot!" I don't think I'm going to join the group for the late dinner the hotel has laid on. I also don't smell very good, having been in these clothes for 30+ hours now.
Why am I here? Aside from getting to see the Midnight Sun over the LNG site in Hammerfest at dusk?
ABB invited me to go as one of the token North American journalists to see what they are doing to bring Arctic gas to new markets. We will visit the LNG plant on Melkoya Island and hear from Oivind Nilsen, vice president production from Statoil. Then we'll hear from Veli-Matti Reinikkala, ABB's head of process automation about ABB's oil and gas opportunity strategy from 2011-2015. Then we will attend the official opening of ABB's northernmost office in Hammerfest.
Then on Thursday, we get to take a cruise ship from Hammerfest to Honningsvag which is the other "northernmost city" in Norway. We will hear from Borghild Lunde, vice president strategy and business development about "Subsea, longer, deeper, colder."
Then we leave by bus for Alta and fly back to Copenhagen. I stay overnight and then I'm home on Friday afternoon. And I will be tired.
I will report often as I can.
