Farewell Statoil, hello Equinor

The ticker name STL has disappeared from the Oslo stock exchange ticker after shareholders in Norway's state-controlled Statoil voted to change the company's name to Equinor. The new ticker name is EQNR.

The company's American Depository Receipts trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The NYSE ticker name STO will be replaced, also by EQNR, possibly as early as tomorrow.

The Norwegian state is a 67pc shareholder in the firm, so the outcome of the vote was not in doubt.

The intention to change the name was announced earlier this month when chief executive Eldar Saetre said: "We need a name that reflects our current strategy in a much better way, and what it means to be an integrated part of the energy transition." The move to cleaner energy presents an "opportunity where we have a competitive advantage", Saetre said. However, a shareholder proposal that the board should present a strategy for transforming the company's business from producing energy from fossil sources to renewable energy was not adopted.