The Norwegian Government Pension Fund, Global — a powerful sovereign wealth fund worth $375 billion — is being put under the spotlight again in Norway for “controversial” investment decisions, this time for ownership shares in Chinese shipyard group Cosco, owner of a cargo ship that went aground in picturesque southern Norway this week and leaked hundreds of tonnes of oil.

The fund, called the Oil Fund, has 174 million kroner ($28.9 million) invested in the Cosco-owned ship Full City, according to online newspaper Fiskeribladetfiskaren.no.

Citing “ethics monitor” Norwatch, the online paper wrote the ship is known for weapons tranports to ”undemocratic regimes”. Despite reports of weapons ferrying, the Oil Fund — which regularly blacklists investments on ethical grounds — increased investments in Cosco , a key supplier of offshore-related yard services.

Meanwhile, Cosco has hired Netherlands-based super salvage company Smit Salvage to clean up the mess and right the hull of the grounded vessel. The Norwegian Coastal Authority, too, has hurried to scrape up oil barriers and booms from emergency help lists countrywide to keep fuel oil spill at bay.

The experts of Smit have been working for six days to extricate Full City, in full view of vacationers and television crews from across the environmentally conscious country. Smit was hired under a “Lloyd’s Open Form 2000 Scopic contract”, apparently the standard way help is brought to hand for ship-side salvage operations.

Essential salvage, pumping and fuel oil recovery equipment had to be airlifted to Norway from the Netherlands and diving support vessels and tank barges were brought in.

Smit is famous for the asistance it brought to Gulf of Mexico oil companies during the past three years’ hurricanes, plus dozens of other high-profile missions:

In 2006, the semi submersible vessel Mighty Servant 3 developed a list and sank after offloading the drilling platform Aleutian Key. Smit raised it from 55-metres depths bottom.

The year also saw the 158,000-tonne crude carrier Kim Jacob helped from a sandbank while heavily laden with Venezuelan heavy crude.

Most famously, perhaps, Smit helped salvage at least two jack-up drill rigs set adrift up to 70 nautical miles after Hurricane Rita in 2005 and then three semi-submersibles and two tankers after the disastrous year’s two other hurricanes.

Tags: COSCO Shipyard, Smit Salvage