- Kari Druglimo-Nygaard Adviser 22 03 74 94 kdr@forskningsradet.no
Major differences between the USA and Norway:
Worker involvement lowers risk of petroleum disasters
Although a major accident such as the one on Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico could happen in the North Sea, well-established organisational models and stringent safety measures reduce that risk, reports a Norwegian research project.
In Norway, responsibility for safety and security in the petroleum sector is a three-way effort on the part of the oil industry, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway, and the trade unions. This safety model functions completely differently from the US system in this area, according to a major Norwegian research project that compares oil industry regulation in the USA, Norway and Great Britain.
(Photo: US Coast Guard)
Building trust over time
Perhaps the most important factor in the Norwegian model is that trust has been built up between the actors over a long period of time.
A number of collaborative arenas for systematic safety efforts have been developed. This has led to an oil industry that truly does its utmost to ensure safety, through active cooperation with the trade unions and supervisory authorities.
Project exposes weaknesses
Although US regulation is more rigorous than Norwegian in many areas, the project identifies some clear US weaknesses – particularly in the ability to discover system failure before disastrous consequences such as those from Deepwater Horizon occur.
Preben Lindoe (Photo: UiS)
“In our project we compare not only the countries’ legal and regulatory frameworks, but also the way in which the authorities and the industry have structured their interaction,” explains project manager Preben Lindøe of the University of Stavanger, “and how their respective trade unions are involved.”
The other research partners in the project entitled “Robust regulation in the petroleum sector” are the SINTEF Group and the University of Oslo, as well as legal expertise affiliated with Boston University.
The primary objective of the four-year project is to examine the soundness of Norway’s regulation of the petroleum sector. Comparing it to the US and British systems is one element of the study.
Norwegian employees are onboard
In Norway, the parties within all industries are accustomed to cooperating under the general Nordic social model. In the context of the Norwegian continental shelf, these principles have led to the operators assuming much of the responsibility for safety management. Trade unions, and safety delegates in particular, play a pivotal role in these safety efforts.
“Many have questioned whether it is at all possible to regulate such a demanding industry as this one through internal controls. We believe we can document that much of the success of the Norwegian approach is due to the way the parties choose to apply the regulations in practice. Both the industry and the trade unions are concerned with developing industry standards and good practices that can be complied with,” says Mr Lindøe.
Close three-way cooperation
In the North Sea there is very direct collaboration between the oil industry, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway and the trade unions. Cooperation procedures were refined and updated after a crisis of confidence 10 years ago between the industry on the one hand and the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway and trade unions on the other.
The roots of this model of cooperation, however, date back to the 1970s, when Norway’s Working Environment Act was adopted. The act granted employees a proactive role not only in terms of their own safety but also as participants in developing production installations and their own workplace.
US workers not involved
Trade unions per se do not really exist in the Gulf of Mexico oil industry. So a joint collaboration such as that on the Norwegian continental shelf is not feasible.
The Minerals Management Service (MMS) – the US petroleum safety authority – oversees the industry through a comparatively detailed regulatory framework, with inspectors travelling out to the platforms to check that all required equipment is in place and in working order.
Dr. Helge Ryggvik (Photo: Aschehoug)
“In the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon, MMS has been criticised for having too cosy a relationship with the companies and for having reduced the number of inspections,” says Researcher Helge Ryggvik of the University of Oslo. “Yet its inspection activities are more comprehensive than on the Norwegian continental shelf. And unlike the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway, MMS has its own helicopters and can conduct unannounced inspections.”
Dr Ryggvik has compared the regulations – and how they are implemented – in Norway and the USA. Just three weeks before the Deepwater Horizon accident, he had visited MMS in Washington and New Orleans as well as several key US institutions.
MMS moving towards Norway’s system
“The number of Gulf of Mexico inspections has been somewhat reduced in recent years because MMS has tried to move in the direction of the Norwegian system. But it’s difficult to copy Norway without all the pieces in place, especially our three-part cooperation.”
The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway inspections are based on the companies’ internal controls; the agency follows up on the overall safety system of the companies. To a great extent, the authorities assume that the companies will take care of the details.
“While the Norwegian model is built on trust, cooperation, and sharing of experience and information,” asserts Dr Lindøe, “the situation in the USA is nearly the opposite.”
One point of criticism levelled at MMS was the agency’s dual responsibility for both collecting royalties from the oil companies and inspecting those same companies. In May of this year, MMS split its activities to keep collections and inspections separate, as the Norwegians did in 2004.
Risk potential is high
But near-accidents that could have been disastrous have occurred in Norway as well in recent years. The most serious was a gas leak on the Snorre platform in the North Sea’s Tampen area in 2004, when the situation was just a spark away from turning just as ugly as on the Deepwater Horizon rig. And this May the Gullfaks C platform in the North Sea was evacuated due to well-pressure problems.
(Photo: BP)
“The sources of danger in offshore oil drilling are just as great on the Norwegian continental shelf as in US waters,” emphasises Dr Lindøe, “which is why it’s important to understand from the inside how efforts to prevent major accidents actually function.”
Much of the petroleum technology in use around the world is the same. The engineering and service companies are the same as well, but the offshore operators conduct their activities differently from country to country. The companies involved in Deepwater Horizon, namely Halliburton and Transocean, also operate in the North Sea.
Scapegoat or system failure?
When an accident happens on the Norwegian continental shelf, the parties convene to uncover any weaknesses in systems or routines that contributed to workers making a mistake. There is agreement that this is how to achieve better results, rather than spending resources on finding scapegoats and not bothering to change the systems.
“Did the Gulf of Mexico incident occur because the regulatory regime was not stringent enough, or due to a failure in the safety culture? This project can provide some valuable insight to apply to future regulation of petroleum-related activities,” concludes Adviser Tor-Petter Johnsen of the Research Council’s PETROMAKS programme, which has allocated NOK 8 million to the project “Robust regulation in the petroleum sector”.
- Published:
- 28.06.2010
- Last updated:
- 10.01.2012
