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A JOURNAL FROM THE NORWEGIAN OCEAN INDUSTRY AUTHORITY

Integrating safety and security

Photo of Frode Leversund sitting by a table Photo: Elisabeth Kjørmo/Havtil
"The presence of drones and Home Guard soldiers must not distract attention from safety work at a land plant, says Gassco CEO Frode Leversund. “We need to strike a balance.”

The presence of drones and Home Guard soldiers must not distract attention from safety work at a land plant, says Gassco CEO Frode Leversund. “We need to strike a balance.”

  • Security

From its head office at Bygnes north of Stavanger, state-owned Gassco controls Norway’s entire gas exports. This huge responsibility has become even more significant following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The attention paid to security of supply, gas infrastructure and the company’s role peaked when the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea were sabotaged in September 2022.

As top man at the Norwegian gas guarantor, Leversund accepts that deliveries of the commodity to Europe have acquired a security-policy dimension today. But he is quick to emphasise that regularity has always been high.

“Norway’s reputation is as a reliable supplier, and regularity has been consistently above 99 per cent – effectively 100 per cent.

“The events in the Baltic focused massive attention on anything which could create uncertainty about deliveries. But we see, of course, that we’ve delivered extremely well and stably throughout this period.”

Security

Public concern over the security of critical gas infrastructure and deliveries from Norway is much lower today than it was. But that does not mean they are less important – the country currently meets 30 per cent of Europe's gas needs.

Nor does reduced attention mean a decline in the threat level – quite the contrary.

In 2023, Gassco was brought within the scope of Norway’s National Security Act, and gas transport to Europe was designated a fundamental national function (GNF). Responsibility for supervising compliance with the Act in the petroleum sector rests with Havtil.

Where the gas transport company is concerned, one result of this has been greater responsibility for safeguarding assets and closer collaboration with the government on emergency preparedness.

“Security is by nothing new to us, we've worked on it a lot,” says Leversund. “The Act imposes even stricter requirements on us. We’re now looking at what this means in such areas as vulnerability analysis and risk assessment.

“The new requirements will probably entail some changes, such as improved information management and the introduction of different levels of security clearance.”

Photo of the Kårstø plant
Located in Tysvær local authority, Kårstø is responsible for landing and processing natural gas and condensate. It receives input from such fields as Statfjord, Gullfaks, Sleipner, Johan Sverdrup and Åsgard via the Statpipe, Åsgard Transport and Sleipner East condensate pipelines. Around 30 fields are connected by pipeline to Kårstø, which ranks as the largest facility of its kind in Europe. Photo: Elisabeth Kjørmo/Havtil

Integrated

“We must be vigilant and not naive,” says Leversund, who is prepared for today’s high threat level and the big demand for Norwegian gas to continue.

The question is then what consequences a strong concentration on security will have for traditional safety work related to the working environment and major accident risk.

Frode Leversund emphasises that this must be managed in an integrated way.

“Responsibility for both safety and security rests with the line organisation, while the staff functions are responsible for security as a discipline. I don't think integrated responsibility here poses a big challenge. It's well understood.

“However, it could be challenging if the adoption of security measures distracts attention from safety work. An example is raising the security level and stationing Home Guard soldiers at a large gas plant.

“Such scenarios must be handled in a good way and through close collaboration between the operator, plant manager and the authorities.

“We mustn’t allow drones and Home Guard soldiers to distract attention from safety work at a plant. It must be possible to strike a balance between both.”

We must be vigilant and not naive.

Reorganisation

The decision to create Gassco was taken in 2001 as part of a big reorganisation of Norway’s oil and gas sector in response to the partial privatisation of Statoil (now Equinor) and the EU’s gas market directive.

Ensuring neutral treatment of all parties involved in gas transport was thereby necessary, and the Storting (parliament) achieved this by establishing an independent state-owned company,

From 1 January 2002, Gassco assumed operator responsibility for all gas transport from the NCS. It took over Statoil's control centre at Bygnes as well as the pipeline network and terminals on land.

In addition, it became responsible for the two big central gas processing plants at Kårstø north of Stavanger and Kollsnes in Vestland county. Operatorship of the Nyhamna plant in Møre og Romsdal followed later.

Limited

Despite its major responsibilities, the new company was limited in size. Storting proposition no 36 (2000-2001) stated that “the new company will concentrate its activities on system operation, licence administration and overall supervision of the whole transport infrastructure on the NCS”.

That is still the position. As operator, Gassco uses others as technical service providers (TSPs) at its major onshore facilities – Equinor at Kårstø and Kollsnes and Norske Shell at Nyhamna.

The company itself has just under 400 employees. Two-thirds of them work at Bygnes and the rest at the gas terminals. Without the TSPs, this number would be much higher.

“Including suppliers, and depending on the level of activity, some 4 000 full-time equivalents (FTEs) are worked annually to operate gas infrastructure on the NCS,” Leversund reports.

He identifies several benefits of the TSP model, along with the requirements posed for the operator's “see-to-it” duty towards suppliers. The latter is an important principle in assigning accountability for plant safety.

“Such a model supplements our own capabilities by giving us access to resources and technical expertise at Equinor and Shell,” Leversund points out.

“Our operator role means that we must have sufficient expertise in the various disciplines to exercise our see-to-it responsibility for the TSPs.”

Even if Gassco does not have a big technical organisation of its own, Leversund points out, it must know enough to understand the issues as well as being able to challenge and ask the right questions.

“Kårstø, Kollsnes and Nyhamna are big gas plants which play a hugely important role in the whole Norwegian gas machine,” he says.

“So it’s important for us to ensure that we’re given priority by the TSPs, and that these have sufficient resources, staffing and expertise. That’s naturally regulated by contracts, but we can’t just sit back and expect everything to go smoothly.”

Roles

“It's important to distinguish between an operator and a TSP,” Leversund adds. “We have different roles, and these must be recognised and understood.

He was at Statoil when the TSP model was adopted, and recalls much discussion about the boundary between the two sides – there was talk of “a line in the sand”, who was responsible for what, and how detailed operator control of a TSP should be.

“We had the same discussion with Shell a few years later, but by then the model was well known,” Leversund says. “The interfaces and our follow-up had been clarified.

“I think the allocation of responsibilities between Gassco as operator and Equinor and Shell as TSPs creates a best-practice discussion.

“An operator who challenges in a balanced way and works on best practice across organisational boundaries provides a form of benchmarking. In addition come the infrastructure owners, who also have a see-to-it role.

“So, in a way, you’re well challenged at many levels. I think this strengthens our HSE work by making us perhaps even more vigilant.”

What is the see-to-it duty?

An operator has a special duty to ensure that the enterprise as a whole is conducted in a responsible manner and in line with regulations. It must see to it that everyone doing work on its behalf complies with the requirements of the HSE regime.

This “see-to-it” or oversight duty is a general, all-embracing responsibility which comes on top of a company's general obligation to comply with the regulations.

The operator's management system must specify how this duty is to be discharged.

It is not confined to the operator, but also applies to the other licensees in a production licence.

The latter must make provision for the operator to do its job, and ensure that work complies with regulatory requirements. Licensees also have a responsibility to take action if nonconformities with the regulations are identified.

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