As the sun plunges into the Oslofjord on a December evening, passersby stop outside Norway’s new €620m national art gallery, the new €300m Munch Museum, the new €240m public library and the €550m opera house to take in the dying light.
Thanks to oil and gas reserves in the waters off its coast, Norway is not only extremely rich but getting richer still. Already the World Bank’s seventh wealthiest country by GDP per capita at the start of this year, the resource-rich Scandinavian country’s profits have ballooned to record levels over the last 12 months, as prices on the energy markets tripled due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Norway replaced bellicose Moscow as Europe’s largest supplier of gas.
