StaoilHydro’s chairman Eivind Reiten has had one of the shortest tenures on record. Just four days into the life of his new company, created to be Norway’s national oil and gas champion, he has resigned, apparently as a result of information uncovered during the company’s investigation of its Libyan business.

Norsk Hydro, now mostly an aluminium company after Statoil bought all its oil and gas interests in the deal to create StatoilHydro, announced last year, has given a few details in its statements, first on Monday, when the investigation was revealed, and then on Thursday when Mr Reiten stood down. The Libyan business was previously part of Norsk Hydro, which picked it up when it bought Saga Petroleum in 1999.

Beyond that, we know very little, and for now it is hard to escape the feeling that Mr Reiten is paying the price for Norway’s exemplary standards in terms of transparency in the oil industry. Since the Statoil scandal of 2003, which claimed the jobs of the chairman and chief executive, Norway’s government has been at the forefront of the international fight against corruption, and StatoilHydro is more than 60 per cent government-owned.

Less than a week before Mr Reiten’s resignation, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a group that brings together companies, investors and NGOs, was hailing the agreement of 15 countries to implement its standards. At the same time, Norway became the first development country to say it would do likewise. In those circumstances, it would have been impossible for Mr Reiten to stay in his job. Caesar’s wife had to be above suspicion, and so do Norwegian oil bosses.