Morten FRISCH

Morten Frisch has more than 50 years of international hands-on “operator” experience in dealing with strategic, commercial and operational issues along the entire pipeline gas as well as LNG chains. He has led the negotiation of major international Gas Sales Agreements, representing both sellers and buyers.

His career is unique since this developed in parallel with the in the 1970ies emerging oil and gas industry in his home country Norway. As a relative novice to the industry Morten was 30 years old given responsibility for Norway’s gas marketing strategies and a gas sales projects then with NPV US$ 6.7 billion (1976).

Morten is one of the main architects of the price review and price re-opener clauses today commonly used in Continental European pipeline gas and Atlantic Basin LNG sales agreements. He is frequently called upon as an expert witness in arbitrations and court cases dealing with pricing and contractual issues under gas supply agreements. He has been active in this area in Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe.

His master degree thesis was “Design parameters for offshore hydrocarbon pipelines”, and he has been involved in the strategic planning, design, construction, operation and repair of major North Sea offshore gas pipeline systems and onshore gas pipeline systems in Continental Europe. He has also conducted gas pipeline related work in Australia and the Arabian Gulf Area.

As part of his pipeline gas and LNG work, Morten analyses and comments on supply, demand and pricing issues in oil, coal and electricity markets. He has followed shale gas and shale/tight oil developments in North America since 2002 analysing the revival of the oil and gas industries in this region and its impact on international energy markets. In 2009 he advised the US DoE of the benefits to the US economy of continued and expanded shale gas and shale/tight oil exploration and production activities in the USA.

Morten has lead gas sales and purchase negotiations in the Arabian Gulf Area over the last 30 years and he has also been actively involved in contracts for the supply of LNG to both Asian and European markets from the area.

Morten founded the Anglo/Norwegian natural gas and energy consulting partnership Morten Frisch Consulting or MFC in October 1990. Prior to starting MFC, he worked for the Norwegian government, Statoil (now Equinor), Phillips Petroleum (now ConocoPhillips) and Mobil Oil (now ExxonMobil).

Morten is an engineer and economist with degrees from The University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK (1971) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (1975). He has been a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) since 1975 and he was elected into the “SPE Legion of Honor” in May 2024 for 50 years full membership in the society. He is a founder member of the Norwegian Petroleum Society and he holds memberships in the British Institute of Energy Economics (BIEE) and the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE).

Morten has published a number of major papers and articles addressing strategic and commercial gas and oil market issues. He is a seasoned conference speaker and is regularly interviewed about energy issues on major TV networks.

For more information about Morten see https://www.linkedin.com/in/morten-frisch-4405457/