Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me, on behalf of the minister of local government and regional development, to wish the delegates to this conference welcome to Norway. I would like to thank the Society of Petroleum Engineers for choosing Norway as venue for the 5th international conference on health, safety and environment.

Norway has long traditions for having concerns for health, safety and environment. We like to believe that we may give some valuable contributions to the international efforts on these issues.

The world is rapidly growing smaller, and we become more and more dependent on international co-operation to achieve our common goals in this area. Saying this, I am pleased to see that the speakers to this conference are highly qualified representatives from respected companies and organisations from all over the world. I have also been informed that the Society has a considerable impact on the industry.

In Norway a lot of different ministries share the governmental responsibility for health, safety and environment.

In spite of this fact, the Government makes every effort to ensure that matters of health, safety and environment, in particular for the offshore petroleum industry, are dealt with as a whole.

I am determined that the management of health, safety and environment must be seen as part of the total quality management within the companies.

To create this uniform approach to management of HSE, the Government is in the process of carrying out a complete review of the legislation.

The aim for this project is to provide a new structure, which will bring together the current regulations managed by different authorities into one new Royal Decree and four sub-ordinate sets of regulations. This will in fact create one single set of legislation for the offshore industry when it comes to HSE-matters. I believe this is quite unique!

The work is conducted with close co-operation between the involved authorities as well as with the industry and the labour unions. When the process is completed, the Government expects this innovation to give a positive and cost-effective result.

The Government has various motives for the management of health, safety and environment. Firstly, in a welfare society, the health and safety for people is an important and obvious objective in itself. Financial wealth for a country is of little value if people’s life and health have to be sacrificed. The Norwegian requirements relating to HSE are therefore not negotiable on a cost-benefit basis.

Secondly, the Government believes that a quality performance in this area may also prove to be financially profitable for the industry as well as for the society.

For quite some time, there has been a general understanding of the fact that the industry and the authorities have common interests with regard to safety. It is well known that fires, explosions etc. may create considerable losses.

With regard to working environment, it is more difficult to make the industry fully accept the benefits of maintaining a high standard. I am not implying that the companies behave in a cynical manner with regard to the employees' safety and health.

Nevertheless, it is a fact that the expenses caused by working accidents and work related diseases are mainly carried by the society through the health security system.

I also believe that the industry easily underestimates the costs that accidents and diseases can mean for the companies.

Also with regard to the environment, the society and the companies may to some extent have different motives – maybe also a different degree of motivation – for their performance. A driving force for the industry is of course the threat of massive claims for compensation or huge clean-up costs in case of a pollution accident.

It is also an interesting trend that an increasing number of investors now introduce ethical criteria for the investment objects, including environment protection performance. Furthermore, the ordinary customer may react negatively towards companies that do not perform up to ethical standards. This may turn out to be a strong driving force as well.

The Norwegian Government believes that a sound management of health, safety and environment does not necessarily impose extra costs on the industry. The companies must have a long-term plan for their achievements!

Based on this fact it is with quite some scepticism the Ministry observes that organisational changes seem to introduce a shorter planning horizon within certain parts of the industry. We see it as the main challenge ahead to ensure that health, safety and environment can be maintained and developed further under these conditions.

The United Nations, as shown by the Commission on Sustainable Development, also addresses the international issues. One important action is the Expert Meeting that will be held after this SPE conference here in Stavanger.

I know that some of you will attend the Expert meeting. Let me therefore go back to my initial words were I welcomed the initiative taken by the Society of Petroleum Engineers to bring together people who have an impact on the future development in this area.

Lastly, in the faith that this conference may contribute to further moves in the right direction, it only remains for me to wish the organisers as well as each individual delegate the best of luck with the conference.

Thank you for your attention.