The governing system in Statoil has been certified to the international ISO 9001 standard. This certification lasts for three years.
The group has been assessed in relation to internationally-recognised good practice for such systems, confirming that it bears comparison with the ablest national and foreign companies.
Chief executive Olav Fjell was presented with the certificate on 24 October by Miklos Konkoly-Thege, head of classification society Det Norske Veritas (DNV).
Mr Fjell observed at the presentation that Statoil had devoted substantial resources since 1998 to cleaning up and improving the efficiency of its management system and governing documents.
Pursued at both corporate and business area level, this work had resulted in considerable simplifications.
“Even with in-house incentives, it’s useful to have an external body which monitors that we’re implementing the system we’ve now established, that we’re setting targets which are followed up and that we’re executing improvement processes,” Mr Fjell added.
Statoil has resolved that all central operational entities will certify their part of the governing system in accordance with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 or both.
Several units within the Manufacturing & Marketing and International Exploration & Production business areas have already achieved such certification.
The goal is to have all the other units certified by the end of 2004.
“We’re in a phase of strong internationalisation,” Mr Fjell observed. “So it’s important to have received both in-house and external confirmation that our governing system equips us to deliver what we’ve promised.”
Mr Konkoly-Thege said that the certification job had left DNV impressed at the dynamism and vigour of Statoil’s large organisation.
He noted that the system of process ownership sets an example to others, and that the governing system was well rooted in the group.