The 2002 chief executive’s prize for health, safety and the environment has been awarded to Statoil’s maritime operations sector and the companies operating service vessels for the group.
Following a negative trend in 1997-2000, the sector initiated extensive work to clarify the causes of poor HSE results on these ships and to identify ways of reversing the trend.
These efforts have led to a very positive development in terms of both injuries and collisions between vessels and installations.
While 12 of the latter incidents were registered in 2000, this figure for the same ships on Statoil assignments has fallen to two over the past two years.
Service vessels perform supply, standby and anchorhandling duties for Norwegian offshore operations.
Statoil has about 30 of these ships on charter at any given time, and this number can rise to 70 during periods of high activity.
Measures adopted include strengthening vessel crews with an additional navigator, and a conscious effort to improve communication between the players involved in these operations.
According to the award jury, this is a good example of the way in which high HSE standards can also yield efficient operation.
The general level of Norwegian offshore safety has been improved, in that the work has established good attitudes as well as developing standards which have become industry norms.