Phillips Petroleum found Ekofisk on its last required well in 1969, and Norway saved the oil money in a fund for future generations

By the summer of 1969 Phillips Petroleum's managers in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, had lost faith in Norway after several dry wells. Its licence required one more well, and the rig's day rate had to be paid whether it drilled or not. The rig Ocean Viking spudded the well in block 2/4 on 18 September 1969. On 25 October gas readings jumped at 3,081 metres. On 23 December a Norwegian ministry official took the call reporting the find. It was the 38th well drilled in the Norwegian North Sea. Phillips announced the discovery on 2 June 1970. In 1990 Norway's parliament passed the law creating what is now the Government Pension Fund Global, and the first money went in in 1996. Its stated purpose is to make the oil wealth benefit both current and future generations. The government may spend only the fund's expected real return, about 3 percent a year. Its value passed 20,000 billion kroner in 2024, and it owns almost 1.5 percent of all listed shares in the world. It pays for about a quarter of the national budget. In 2025 the fund sold its Caterpillar shares after the company's bulldozers were used in the Palestinian territories, and the US government objected. On 4 November 2025 the government pushed a proposal through parliament suspending the ethics council's work, so the $2.1 trillion fund would not have to sell Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet.