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Norwegian watchdog seeks better spill prevention
last update: Aug 20, 2010 08:55 AM
From a "Reuters" article: Norway's oil safety watchdog said it was seeking improvements from the petroleum industry to prevent offshore blowouts and leaks in the wake of BP's damaging U.S. oil spill.
The director general of the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway, Magne Ognedal, told Reuters in an interview that oil companies aiming to tap the riches of Norway's Arctic waters will have to invest in additional safety measures. "We asked the OLF (Norway's oil industry lobby) to look into the possibility of developing equipment that could handle subsea blowouts regardless of water depths. They will need to look for better technologies to help detect a leak on subsea installations. We are looking for improvements in that area."
Norway is is Europe's second-largest energy exporter and already has some of the toughest safety regulations in the world.
Norway is asking oil companies to have an additional safety device on a blow-out preventer, a measure not required in the United States but which many say would have prevented BP's Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to Ognedal, an international meeting of oil safety watchdogs would be held in Washington DC on September 8-9, on the initiative of his office, to address the blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Australia.
"There are special safety issues that need to be addressed (in the Arctic)," Ognedal said. "New equipment will need to be made available ... and we will need new designs for installations."
Read more:
Reuters, 19th August 2010
