The VOC project has won the chief executive's prize for health, the environment and safety (HES) in 1998.
Representatives for the project from Statoil and its Navion shipping subsidiary were presented with their award by chief executive Harald Norvik in a ceremony at head office in Stavanger on the afternoon of 4 December.
This work, which aims to recover volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from shuttle tankers, is supported by 18 oil companies.
Accepting the award, project manager Arne Moe Tvedt and staff engineers Ola Ruch, Terje Berg and Reidar Vik heard Mr Norvik say that the idea behind the new technology involved is both simple and visionary.
Solving a pollution problem also provides a financial gain in connection with new commercial opportunities, he added, and said the project represents creativity and inventiveness.
In addition, it makes a good contribution to fulfilling the goals set in last year's Kyoto protocol to the UN's framework convention on climate change and to meeting other environmental objectives.
The VOC project embraces two sub-projects with Statoil and Navion participation - VOC Fuel and VOC Absorption. Each of these aims to build a full-scale pilot plant to recondense VOCs which otherwise escape from shuttle tankers during loading. This liquid is either stored and used to fuel the ship's engines, or returned to the cargo.
In assessing the four finalists for the HES prize, the jury emphasised that their initiatives must document positive effects in this area.
The three other finalists also received prizes as runners up from Mr Norvik. Like the VOC project, they were picked from among 64 candidates nominated in 1998. Forty nominations were received for last year's award.