Industry Executives Discuss Arctic Safety at PSA Conference

On Friday 1 November, senior executives from the petroleum industry from Norway and abroad are meeting for a conference at the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) on risk management and safe petroleum activities in the High North.

The aim of the Arctic Safety – managing risk in the High North conference is to establish an arena in which the key players and authorities, both national and international, meet to exchange experience concerning the safety of petroleum activities in the high latitudes. The conference is intended for invited senior executives from the industry.

High-level programme

The opening talk of the conference will be given by Helge Lund, CEO of Statoil. Other senior executives on the operator side will include Tor Arnesen from A/S Norske Shell and Meg O’Neill from ExxonMobil Norge. The rig industry will be represented by Transocean’s Director of Operations, Asbjørn Olsen.

The employees’ perspective on safety in the High North will be presented by Frode Alvheim, deputy leader of IndustriEnergi, while Jim Fox from Canada’s National Energy Board will put forward the views of the Canadian authorities.

The PSA will be represented by Director General Anne Myhrvold and head of section Svein Anders Eriksson. They will discuss the authorities’ requirements and expectations, and standardisation as a tool for collaboration on safety, respectively.

The industry must collaborate

For the PSA, the conference is an opportunity to put the spotlight on collaboration as the key to safety in the High North. The PSA’s foremost authority on the High North, the Arctic and the Barents Sea, Sigurd Robert Jacobsen, explains:

“We’re now starting to move really far north and a very long way from land. That means the oil companies and rig contractors must collaborate.

“Developing a positive level of safety in the far north is a common responsibility which rests with the industry”, Jacobsen emphasises.

“Without collaboration and agreements between the players, we’re unlikely to succeed with the planned activities in the Barents Sea. That applies to both exploration and development.

“Specifically, the companies must work together on conducting exploration drilling simultaneously in the same areas in order to comply with regulatory requirements.”

[mappress]

Press Release, October 22, 2013