NORSOK Standards -Replacing Company specifications in the North Sea.

Abstract

ABSTRACT The rising cost of offshore development and reduction in oil prices required new initiatives for the business to survive. Therefore, the Norwegian oil industry has, as a part of the NORSOK initiative, developed a set of new industry standards to replace individual company specifications. The ultimate goal is to develop a set of international (ISO) standard for the industry. Abbreviations CENEuropean Standardization Organization HTML Hypertext Markup Language ISO International Organization for Standardization MIE Minister for Industry and Energy NCS Norwegian continental Shelf NORSOKThe Competitive Standing of the Norwegian Offshore Sector NPD Norwegian Petroleum Directorate NS Norwegian Standard NSFNorwegian Standards Association NTSNorwegian Technological Standards Institution OLF The Norwegian Oil Industry Association SGML Standard General Markup Language TBL The Federation of Norwegian Engineering Industries The Initiative The NORSOK initiative was started in the summer of 1993 by the Norwegian Minister of Industry and Energy, Mr. Finn Kristensen. He established the Development and Production Forum for the Petroleum Sector, with top imaging directors of the oil and gas industry, including the politician and the authorities concerned. The coat of exploration, development and operation was escalating to m alarming level, while the price of oil was dropping. Exploration drilling in the last few years had turned out few discoveries of larger fields, while many small discover were uneconomical to develop with current technology. The main aim for the Forum was to identification improvement potentials in cost of field developments and petroleum policies that would make the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) more competitive with other petroleum-producing provinces, in order to attract further investment. Two subsidiary objectives were formulated when NORSOK was launched:A 40-50 per cent reduction in cost and lead time over the next five-year period, baaed on beat practice in 1993.Good results have been obtained from work with safety and environmental protection on the NCS, and Norway's oil industry can reasonably be described as one of the safest in the world. It is intended to maintain this position. The consequent of this initiative was thus hoped to be a continuation end prolongation of North Sea activities, with continued employment and commercial activities in the oil and gas industry. AS this industry currently provides for a substantial income to the state of Norway, this was very much a political issue as well m an industrial matter. Organization Of work Having worked for six months on this task, the Abovementioned Forum proposed to the Minister in February of 1994 to launch 7 workgroups, to identical and implement measures that would improve the competitive standing of the Norwegian petroleum industry, and one of these were to deal with Standard. The work groups were to deliver their reports to the Minister within one year.