Solstad Offshore is a truly international company that is still based in a tiny, jaw-droppingly beautiful village. The firm remains a major part of the fabric of the Norwegian hamlet of Skudeneshavn, where it started, and it looks to its local ties as a source of pride, strength and future promise.

Skudeneshavn, population 3,274 — a cluster of about 225 traditional white wooden houses on the southern tip of the southwest island of Karmoy — is headquarters of the Oslo-listed company whose 50 ships were independently valued at more than NOK18bn ($3.1bn)