ABSTRACT
The Norwegian offshore oil industry’s apparent international success seems to confirm the old ‘infant industry-argument’. Until the late 1980s, the industry could grow inside a carefully-tuned protectionist regime, but from the early 1990s, as the industry appeared as technologically competent and financially robust, the ‘scaffold’ was removed. Being able to compete with foreign companies in Norway, Norwegian companies were able to compete in foreign offshore markets as well. The chapter gives a picture of factors that explain the development of a strong domestic supply industry, revealing the factors that shaped the technological competence and gave incentives to build up specialised clusters, and finally enable Norwegian supplier companies to compete in a global arena and in some cases to establish themselves abroad.
