Safety Regulation

1
Safety Regulation

• Petroleum law
• 3. April 2008
• Hanne Sofie Logstein, Research fellow
• Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law,
  Department of petroleum and Energy Law
• h.s.logstein_at_jus.uio.no

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Scope of the lecture

• Introduction, historic development, accidents,
  jurisdiction
• The legislation, Acts and regulations
• The Bodies, Companies and the state
• State safety management
• Safety norms, functional requirements, supplied
  interpretation and guidelines
• Industry safety management system
• The interaction between the systems
• Reactions/sanctions

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Introduction

• Young industry
• Risky conditions
• New technology
• Old equipment
• Vulnerable areas
• Accidents
• Alexander Kielland, 1980
• Piper Alpha, British Continental Shelf, 1988

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Piper Alpha
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Risk

• Risk
• The product of probability of occurrence of an
  undesirable event, times the probable
  consequences if it occurs
• Technology, economic, soft issues etc

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Historical development

• The development
• Concrete rules -more detailed
• General problem
• The industry have first hand experience
• The legislation always lays behind
• Mid 70s
• internal control
• functional requirements

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Jurisdiction

• Located at the continental shelf
• UNCLOS art 77
• Fixed installations vs. mobile facilities
  (maritime law)
• The costal states interests vs. flag state
• PA 1-4 This act applies to petroleum
  activities
• Other Norwegian law shall also be applicable to
  petroleum activities, PA 1-5
• not mobile facilities under foreign flag
• If not permanent placed
• The King may decide 1-4, 1-5

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The relevant acts

• The Petroleum Activities Act (PA)
• The Working Environment Act.
• The Pollution Control Act
• The Control of Products and Consumer Services Act
• Applicable to the extent suitable to the scope FR
  2
• The Health Personnel Act
• The Patients Rights Act
• The Health and Social Preparedness Act.
• (The seaworthiness act 1903 repealed a new ship
  safety act in force 1. July 2007)

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The regulation

• The framework regulations (FW) (Royal Decree),
• Subordinate regulations
• The management regulations
• The information duty regulations
• The facilities regulations
• The activities regulations.

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Bodies I The authorities

• The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) until
  2004
• Divided in 2004
• NPD Resource management
• The Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) established
  dealing with safety issues
• Report No. 17(2002-2003) to The Storting
  (parliament) about public supervise
  (tilsynsmeldingen)

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Bodies II The authorities

• Cooperation between
• The Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (under
  the Ministry of the Environment)
• The Norwegian Social and Health Directorate NSHD
  (Ministry of Health and Care Services)
• The Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) (Ministry of
  Labour and Social Inclusion)
• PSA a coordinating role

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Bodies III The companies

• The licensee
• The operator
• Other parties participating all parties
  without being licensee or operator
• The party responsible the operator and other
  parties participating
• Entrepreneurs
• Employers safety and the working environment
  The Working Environment Act

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The bodies IIII The employees

• Duty to contribute, Working Environment Act
  2-3, Framework reg. 5 and 13
• Right to contribute Framework 6
• The three party cooperation

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Types of safety norms

• Requirements with a direct affect on the risk
• Requirements with an indirect affect on the risk
• The legal basis for safety control

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The states involvement

• Prescription of norms
• Safety control
• Enforcement
• State safety management

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Safety in the Petroleum Act

• Measures to
• Prevent harm to personnel, the environment and
  financial values
• Maintain production and transport regularity
• Enable the probability of harm to be
  counteracted, withstood or remedied
• (Proposition to the Odelsting No 43 (1995-96),
  comments to the PA 10-1, see Guidelines to the
  Framework regulation section 2)

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Ways to prescribe safety norms
Stipulate results
Stipulate methods
Specified requirements
Unspecified requirements
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Functional requirements

• The HSE regulations for the petroleum activities
  are normative and contain functional
  requirements.  This means that the regulations
  state the level of safety that must be achieved -
  but not how to achieve it.
• What to be achieved rather than provide concrete
  solutions
• Fragmented
• Flexibility
• Freedom of choice
• Ex Prudent petroleum activities

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Example Prudent petroleum activity

• Petroleum activities according to this Act shall
  be conducted in a prudent manner PA 10-1
• Petroleum activities shall be safe and prudent,
  both in relation to an individual and an overall
  consideration of all the factors of importance
  to planning and implementation of petroleum
  activities as regards health, environment and
  safety Framework regulation 8
• Encourage and promote a sound health,
  environment and safety culture Framework 11

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The regulation Specified trough

• Consents to certain petroleum activities,
  Information duty regulations 5
• Administrative decisions/individual decisions
• No legally binding sources
• Guidelines
• Standards
• Statutory interpretation
• From the authorities
• From co operative bodies
• Penalty reactions/sanctions

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Example Consents Application rejected

• DNO's application for consent for exploration
  drilling is rejected 15.1.2007
• The assessment is based on the application for
  consent and other information received from DNO.
  We find that the operator has not been in
  possession of the required competence and
  capacity in their preparations for the upcoming
  activities. Nor does DNO have the necessary
  competence and capacity required to run a prudent
  drilling operation.

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Interpretation

• Statutory interpretation
• Interpretation by joint delegations.
• Third party co-operation
• Freedom to choose?
• The authority gives no guarantee for that the
  chosen solution fulfils the requirements of the
  regulation
• The responsibility lies by the party responsible

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Guidelines

• Given at the same time as the regulation
• Not legally binding
• 2 functions
• Suggestion of how to meet the requirements
• makes use of a standard recommended
• may as a rule take it that the regulation
  requirements have been met FW 18
• States a level
• Harm or danger shall be prevented or limited
  in accordance with the legislationincluding
  internal requirements and acceptance criteria
  FW 9

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A dynamic requirement

• The level is developing
• Over and above this level the risk shall be
  further reduced to the extent possible
• shall choose the technical, operational or
  organisational solutions which according to an
  individual as well as an overall evaluation of
  the potential harm and present and future use
  offer the best results FR 9
• The limit -narrow
• provided the associated costs are not
  significantly disproportionate to the risk
  reduction achieved

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The industry safety management system

• Internal regulations
• The party responsible shall set internal
  requirements which put the regulatory
  requirements in concrete terms The management
  regulations 5

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The industry safety management system

• Internal control
• The licensee and other persons engagedare
  obliged to comply with the Act, regulations and
  individual administrative decisions through the
  implementation of necessary systematic measures
  PA 10-6
• See to it -duty, (The licensee PA 10-6. 2nd
  paragraph and the operator FW 5)

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The industry safety management system

• Internal control -continued
• shall establish, follow up and further develop a
  management system in order to ensure compliance
  with requirements contained in the legislation
  relating to health, environment and safety FR
  13
• shall decide on the extent of verifications, the
  method to be used in and the degree of
  independence of the verification in order to
  document that the requirements have been met FW
  18

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The industry safety management system

• Internal control continued
• shall ensure that documentation demonstrating
  compliance with requirements stipulated in or
  pursuant to these regulations, can be provided
• When other solutions than those recommended in
  the guidelines to a provision of the regulations
  are used, the party responsible shall be able to
  document that the chosen solution fulfils the
  requirements of the regulations FW 18

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Industry safety management

• Internal regulation
• Internal control
• Industry safety management

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Affects the states supervision

• The Petroleum Safety Authority carries out
  supervision of the management system which is
  established pursuant to these regulations and
  makes the decisions necessary to fulfil
  provisions on requirements to the administrative
  parts of the management systems, stipulated by or
  pursuant to these regulations. This is done in
  co-operation with the Norwegian Pollution Control
  Authority and the Norwegian Board of Health FR
  13
• The Petroleum Safety Authority may order the
  operator to have verifications carried out, or
  alternatively carry out verifications itself. FR
  15

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The interaction between state and industry safety
management
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Sanctions/penalty reactions

• Reactions not laid down by the law
• Revoke a license granted PA 10-13
• Administrative sanctions -orders PA 10-3,
  10-16
• Suspension of the petroleum activities 9-5,
  10-16
• Penalty sanctions PA 10-17

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Example incidents, Enforcement measures - orders

• Report following investigation of fire in the
  HVAC unit on Songa Dee
• 2008-03-26
• On 4 December 2007, a fire broke out on the
  mobile facility Songa Dee during drilling
  activity for StatoilHydro on the Troll field. The
  Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has
  investigated the incident and, among other
  things, identified four nonconformities in
  relation to regulatory requirements.
• The report also includes 12 observations of items
  where there is a potential for improvement.

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Prosecution and decisions by the court

• Prosecution
• After accidents and other incidents
• Decisions by the court
• Two after The Alexander Kielland disaster
• Suffisient training, The working environment act

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Latest development

• From 2004 Some facilities at land (changed the
  geographical scope of the regulations