OSLO: Norway's trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund should continue to invest in oil and gas firms, a government-appointed commission recommended on Friday, contradicting earlier advice from the central bank.A decision on whether to drop energy shares from the fund's benchmark index, and thus divest tens of billions of dollars from oil and gas stocks over time, is expected later this year.
Shares of European oil and gas companies fell last November when the fund's manager, the Norwegian central bank, announced its proposal to cut the exposure of the fund - and thus the Norwegian government - to oil price fluctuations.