Safety Regulation on the Norwegian Continental Shelf

Improving the level of safety in the petroleum activities implies trying to avoid accidents that may cause damage to health, environment and investments. At first glance this is primarily a technological challenge. Structures, equipment and components have to be constructed in such a way that accidents do not happen when the installations are exposed to the physical stresses of operation and nature. 

A closer look reveals, however, that technology alone will not suffice. Soft issues come into play as well, owing to the fact that the installations have to be constructed and operated by humans. This simple fact entails the need for adequate organisational structures, individual competence and adequate ad hoc discretionary decisions - all leading to safely as one of the end results. If these factors are disregarded, no technological achievement can guarantee that accidents are avoided.  

Of course, such guarantees cannot be given under any circumstance. Any activity will unavoidably involve risk that damage is caused to life/health, environment or installations. This risk may be defined as the product of probability of occurrence 

the general health hazard ( risk ) offered by crossing the street of Karl Johan in Oslo may be in the same order as the risk offered by a nuclear power plant the likelihood of an accident happening on the street is far greater than the likelihood of the power plant blowing up, but the consequences of an incident are far greater in the latter case. 

The details of the safety regulation are numerous, and they have a tendency of changing ever so often. 

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