Staoil target of smear campaign

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STAVANGER, Norway, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Norwegian oil company Statoil filed a complaint with the country's broadcasting authority saying images of operations in Canadian oil sands were misleading.

Statoil said a May broadcast by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp. used images of opencast mining in a feature on the company's operations in Canadian oil sands fields.

The company said the issue was "particularly serious" because corporate logos were edited in with images of open mining operations to give the impression that activity was part of Statoil's operations in Canada.

It was "obviously negligent" of the broadcaster to use images of Statoil that have no connection to its work in Canada, the company said.

Statoil said it wasn't involved in that type of oil work in Canada, where it began production in 2011.

"These resources are recovered through wells and by injecting steam to facilitate production," the company said in a statement.

Jannik Lindbaek, vice president for media relations at Statoil, said the company expects a certain degree of media scrutiny but filed a complaint with federal regulators to facilitate "a discussion based on a correct presentation of our activities."