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The first time Eldar Saetre was offered the job of chief executive at Statoil, he declined. Instead, the former finance director of the Norwegian oil major became acting chief executive in October 2014 while the board looked for a full-time replacement.

“It’s a study into human nature,” Mr Saetre says about his five-month journey to become the leader of the government-controlled company.

The first approach took the then 58-year-old by surprise. “I have never had an aspiration to become CEO. I didn’t think I would be asked. It was so distant for me,” he says in an interview on Statoil’s Sleipner gas platform in the middle of the North Sea.

Seated in the small office of the platform’s manager, with the choppy sea visible out of the windows, Mr Saetre is very much chief executive now. His first year in charge has coincided with one of the sharpest falls in the price of oil — “perfect timing”, he says, deadpan.

But Statoil has not just cut costs and investments under his leadership but also started signing contracts for the biggest North Sea discovery in decades — the Johan Sverdrup field. Statoil has even bought a 12 per cent stake in Lundin Petroleum, the Swedish upstart behind the original find.

Mr Saetre — who is drawn from the same serious, hard-working, somewhat taciturn stock as his predecessor, Helge Lund — is still something of an unknown quantity in an oil industry used to larger-than-life figures. This is despite a career of more than 35 years at Statoil with seven of those as its chief financial officer.

Indeed, the most striking thing that many in the industry mention was his initial reluctance to become chief executive. Mr Saetre says the decision to take over on an interim basis was an easy and quick one to make: “I’m loyal to the company,” he says by way of simple explanation.

At the time, he hinted that his age, he was 58 to Mr Lund’s 51, was a decisive factor. But as he started working as acting chief executive, he began to change his mind.

“The experience you get, the level of confidence, and you get the feeling you can make an impact, a difference. I’m a human being and I like to be appreciated,” he says.

So when the chairman asked him again in December 2014 he was more open to the prospect and by February last year it was made official.

Mr Saetre is in many ways a typical Norwegian chief executive. He comes from Sunnmore, a region on the west coast of Norway known for its inhabitants who work hard and live frugally. He has little time for the brash or frivolous. He explains his absence from any kind of social media by saying that he is aware of it, but prefers to get on with the practical aspect of running a business.

His father was a carpenter, building traditional Norwegian wooden houses. Mr Saetre was fascinated by his father’s handwritten accounts, triggering an interest in finance that led him eventually to Statoil where he helped with its stock market listing and its big merger with local rival Hydro.

His straightforward, entrepreneurial background extends to his management style too. “I’m very simple, I’m not a glorious, grand sort of person who likes to talk about myself. I like to get things done,” he says, attired in the common industry offshore garb of checked shirt and jeans. But he adds that he has learnt to accept the exposure that comes with the job.

So, sitting on the platform through which about 40 per cent of all Norwegian gas passes on its way by pipeline to places such as Zeebrugge, Mr Saetre talks about his twin loves of The Beatles and Liverpool Football Club, which he aims to see several times a season.

However, it is clear he is more comfortable when talking about Statoil and more serious matters. Asked to recall his most challenging moments at the company, he is not somebody to reach for a facile example that shows him off in a good light.

Instead, he chooses the In Amenas terrorist attacks in 2013 when five Statoil workers and 35 other innocent people were killed in Algeria. He knew some of the dead workers and says: “It was personally a very tough experience, and very tough for the company.”

But he says he and Statoil learnt several things from it: “Being brutally honest with ourselves. Not being good enough. We needed to reshape and readjust. It can’t happen again, no way.”

His current challenge is less grave but still exacting: dealing with an oil price that this month fell to $28 a barrel, the lowest since 2003, compared with about $90 when he took over.

He says oil companies grew too accustomed to a high oil price. “We forgot that the fundamental nature of oil and gas is volatility and cyclicality … I can’t afford the $100 way of thinking now.”

So costs have been slashed, jobs cut, projects delayed, and efficiency boosted on platforms such as Sleipner. Mr Saetre says delaying or cutting costs is one thing; “what I really want to do is to improve.”

Like most people in the industry, Mr Saetre believes that there will be a recovery in the oil price, even if he is preparing contingencies in case it stays low for the rest of this year and into the next. He argues that so much supply has been held back by oil companies that prices must rebound.

“The longer the downturn lasts, the more forceful the rebound could be. But I don’t know when and I don’t know how long it will take us,” he says.

What he is certain of is that oil and gas will continue to be part of the energy mix despite the Paris climate agreement, which Statoil enthusiastically backed.

“Oil and gas is going to be sticky from a climate perspective. There is no scenario from which you will get away from something that represents 50 per cent of the world’s energy.”

Instead, he argues that the cleanest hydrocarbons should be favoured. Crucially, for him that means no coal and bonus points for projects such as the injection of carbon dioxide into the seabed that takes place on Sleipner.

Statoil has been asked by the Norwegian government to look into other carbon capture projects, which remain a nascent technology 20 years after their start at Sleipner. Mr Saetre is clear about what is needed: “We can do things for kindness, out of good faith, but ultimately we need incentives,” adding that his suggestion is for some kind of tax on carbon.

Much to the chagrin of environmentalists, Statoil will keep on drilling for oil in the Arctic. Mr Saetre says he is excited by the release this year of the first new acreage in Norway for two decades involving an area of the Barents Sea bordering Russia. Unlike Alaska, from where both Statoil and more prominently Royal Dutch Shell have pulled out, Mr Saetre insists that “we can make it work” in the Norwegian Arctic with its relatively shallow waters.

The unexpected deal to buy a stake in Lundin suggests that Statoil, which has some of the lowest reserves in the industry relative to its size, is on the lookout for other sensible acquisitions. But Mr Saetre suggests the oil price shock has been so great that few are feeling very confident at the moment.

“In many boardrooms, they are concerned about their own house. They feel the uncertainty. They need to control their cost base. Nobody has the answer.”