Most Norwegians, as the saying goes, are born with skis on their feet, but the country’s new Petroleum & Energy Minister Tina Bru prefers to indulge in her “guilty pleasure” of PlayStation — and is presently immersed in a virtual reality game about a world in meltdown due to a pandemic.

It has probably proven useful practice for her real-life role after the 33-year-old was appointed earlier this year to the post and was almost immediately plunged into Norway’s emergency response to the global coronavirus crisis.

Bru still considers it her “dream job” even though it has been a baptism of fire, requiring her to adapt to a new reality of a health calamity and cratering oil prices.

“This crisis has come as a shock for me, as it has for all of us, and my present role is certainly different from the one I envisaged when I took over the post in January. Things have been turned upside down in the space of a few weeks,” she says.

Rescue packages

Bru has suddenly been called on to allay fears for the future of the country’s oil and gas industry while the government rolls out financial rescue packages to save jobs and businesses in this and other sectors.

She has also felt the impact of the crisis on the home front, as her husband has been partly laid off from his job in kitchen equipment marketing, leaving him time to look after their 15-month-old son in their Oslo home while she runs between incessant government meetings.

Bru spent several years of her childhood growing up in the US — mainly in Connecticut, Texas and Florida — after her family moved across the pond when she was eight years old to follow her Stavanger-born father’s work in shipping.

The graduate in English literature at Stavanger University is an aficionado of Stephen King novels and also enjoys dystopian thrillers in the form of both books and movies.

Bru eschews sports, unlike her football fan husband, but she is an accomplished dancer, having been schooled in classical ballet and contemporary dance in her youth.

Dancing was relegated to a pastime as she cultivated her passion for politics. Bru served a five-year stint on the Stavanger city council, from 2007, followed by two years on Rogaland County council.

She joined the Storting, or Parliament, in 2013 and served on the Committee on Energy and the Environment, where she grappled with topics such as offshore electrification and the Barents Sea ice boundary.

The experience has proved invaluable in her present role, she says, “as it gave me an understanding of how the oil and gas industry works, as well as insight into the lines of conflict and issues needed to make informed political decisions”.

She also brought youthful innovation to the political scene with a popular podcast, communicating with the public in a colloquial way about key issues while providing behind-the-scenes insights into the workings of Parliament. The Stortingrestauranten podcast attracted thousands of listeners.

The Conservative Party politician’s elevation to minister came after her controversially pro-oil predecessor, Sylvi Listhaug, was pushed out after only a few weeks in the job due to the shock exit of the Progress Party from the ruling coalition.

In contrast to her forerunner, Bru has adopted a more moderate, conciliatory tone, and her appointment was positively received by both the industry and environmental lobby alike — no mean feat, given their polarised stances.

No pushover

But she is still no pushover for the greens and demonstrated as much when she renounced her membership of the state church after priests called for a halt to oil and gas exploitation off Norway.

While Lysthaug dubbed wind turbines “white monsters”, Bru is a firm advocate of the energy transition and applauds the domestic industry’s initiative to reach near-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

At the same time, she dismisses efforts by rival parties to deprive the oil and gas sector of vital state support in its hour of direst need in order to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels to renewables.

“The green restructuring, supported by state funding, is already well under way, but it can only be achieved on the shoulders of the existing industry, with energy companies that can develop the necessary technology and suppliers that can deliver equipment and services,” she says.

Bru claims initiatives such as electrification of offshore fields “are a clear indication that our climate policies are working”, as high domestic taxes on CO₂ emissions combined with the European Union’s quota-trading scheme make it profitable for the industry to cut emissions.

She believes the industry is putting its money where its mouth is by backing green pronouncements with hard investments, for example Equinor's Northern Lights carbon capture and storage scheme and Hywind Tampen floating offshore wind project.

Bru firmly believes, though, that profitable oil and gas resources still must be exploited, including those in the Barents Sea, while the industry develops low-carbon and renewable energy.

The energy transition is just one of the pressing issues on the new minister’s desk, along with determination of the Barents ice boundary, an overhaul of the concession system for wind power, oil and gas licensing, CCS and the controversial proposed NorthConnect power cable to Scotland.

“We still have to keep the wheels of policy turning amid the current challenges,” she says.

Appropriately, Bru also has a business degree in transition management, but she says in jest: “Right now, I wish I had studied crisis management instead.”

Politics

Tina Bru steps into her 'dream job' — and a baptism of fire