In the continuing saga of Björk Guðmundsdóttir versus Magma Energy, she responds to Magma Energy’s contentions that the artist is misinformed and misinforming others.
As has been reported, Ásgeir Margeirsson, the director of Magma in Iceland, told reporters that claims Björk has made that Magma Energy intends to buy up more power companies in Iceland are untrue. Magma Energy is only interested in HS Orka, he said, and nothing more. He also added that the accusation that Magma Energy was “buying natural resources in Iceland” is also untrue; they are renting them, he said, which is different.
Björk, in a statement she issued to reporters earlier today, has corrected the corrections.
She starts by explaining that two questions regarding Magma Energy made their way into a four hour interview she gave in Helsinki recently. These responses, through misinterpretation or mistranslation, ended up very different in print.
“I did not say that Magma Energy and the IMF were working together,” she says in part. “Rather, I said that Magma Energy often comes to countries who have needed the help of the IMF. The countries were on the brink of bankruptcy, and so Magma bought their natural resources at a very low price.”
She continues by saying, “I did not say that Magma Energy intended to buy all of Iceland’s energy sources. I said that they had contact with five other places in the country, and had shown interest in Hrunamannaafrétt, Öræfum, Reykjahlíð, Vogum, Bjarnarflagsvirkjun, Kerlingafjöllum and Krísuvík [all of which are places of geothermal activity]”.
Currently, the Icelandic government has set up a committee to investigate the legality of Magma Energy’s purchase of HS Orka through a Swedish puppet company.