The Immigrant that made Norway and the Norwegian Wealthy

Before 1969, Norway was a peaceful and calm country of traditional fishermen. 

A Norwegian woman married a man from Iraq: Farouk Al Kasim, they met in England when Farouk’s family was able to send their brilliant son to study Geology after a life sacrifice. Farouk and his wife moved back to Iraq, and he got a job at the Iraq Petroleum Company, but the couple, needed to move soon after to Norway; one of their sons suffered of a terrible illness since birth and needed advanced medical care. Farouk arrived to the right place at the right moment. He immediately requested a position in the Ministry for Energy, but coming from Iraq and  being an Arab in Norway in the 60s was very unusual to see and accept, though they listened to the arguments of why they needed to trust and contract this man that was a professional in oil and gas research. 

When Farouk lived in Iraq, he experienced in first person the wrong exploitation of these resources, the outcome of gas from the oil fields was burned, wasting the energy and polluting the environment, causing severe illness to the population living and working in these areas. 

Foreign Company’s started to explore the Norwegian North Sea waters in search for oil with the allowance of the government, but in case of a successful find the oil and the field is and would be always of Norway and the Norwegians; this was the main concern of Farouk, his work became independent and was granted a permission to do and decide how he thought was best. He was given a blank check from the Norwegian State despite that he worked almost hidden since Norwegian directors did not trust in an Arab yet.

Farouk followed the international research closely that was all funded and paid by the foreign companies, but he noted that they were working in the wrong direction, just exploring the sea to a depth of 100m and no further. Examining the geological formations in the companies' studies, he understood that under specific rocks there would be oil. After the discovery of the Ekofisk field everything changed, and Farouk become a national hero and a Lord of the Norwegian Court. But the most important fact was his vision of  how to use the huge amounts of money that the oil and gas would take to Norway, due to his Socialist and developmental mindset, ending with the creation of the Norwegian Oil Fund that holds currently assets of more than 2 Trillion USD and was created to secure the good living of all the 6 million citizens of the country and their future generations. Farouk knowing how oil and gas can destroy life and nature as well, advised to implement from the beginning of the energy development history of Norway an ecological perspective and approach, and that the state is always present as a private company as well, but needs to be concurrent with the international ones, and just quality, transparency and technology will allow the state to get a place in business, but the mantra that the resources are of the people of Norway. 

Norway, with more than 9000 km of gas lines is the first supplier of gas in Europe, for Europe. Farouk is a great example of how immigration is basic for the growing of a country and knowledge needs to be the only argument that counts to be welcome.