The first subsection stipulates that the Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority issues Acknowledgements of Compliance for mobile facilities that will carry out petroleum activities on the Norwegian continental shelf. Acknowledgements of Compliance are not issued for facilities that will only be used for storage. Facilities designated in the first subsection as ”facilities for production, storage and offloading, facilities for drilling, production, storage and offloading", are often labelled as FPSOs (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) and FPDSOs (Floating Production, Drilling, Storage and Offloading). In this provision, ”F” means mobile. The provision shall be understood such that it is the use of the mentioned types of facilities that is decisive for whether an Acknowledgement of Compliance shall be acquired. If a facility is built as an FPSO, but will only be used as a storage unit, an Acknowledgement of Compliance is not necessary. The Acknowledgement of Compliance arrangement is directly founded on the previously voluntary Acknowledgement of Compliance arrangement, which was introduced in August 2000.
An Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) is a statement from the Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority that expresses the authorities' confidence that petroleum activities can be carried out using the facility within the framework of the regulations. The decision is based on information provided in the AoC application relating to the facility's technical condition and the applicant's organisation and management system, as well as the authorities' verifications and other processing. The party that will handle the daily operation of such a facility, shall have an AoC when such a facility participates in petroleum activities subject to Norwegian shelf jurisdiction. The AoC application can be submitted independently from a consent process. An Acknowledgement of Compliance will be an administrative decision according to the
Public Administration Act (in Norwegian only), with the rights that follow from this act.
An AoC will be included as part of the documentation basis in the event of relevant authority processing, but especially in connection with the facility-specific parts of an application for consent. In and of itself, it gives no right to start activities on the Norwegian shelf.
An AoC is granted based on the authorities' evaluations of the condition, compared with the regulations that apply for use of mobile facilities on the Norwegian continental shelf at the time of the statement. The acknowledgment is given on the basis of the authorities' follow-up of the applicant and information the applicant has provided regarding the facility and the organisational conditions. An AoC includes technical conditions, relevant parts of the applicant's management system, performed analyses, maintenance programmes and upgrade plans.
Use of such an acknowledgement in the event of a subsequent application for consent for use, shall be seen in light of how the regulations or the facility's technical condition, the applicant's organisation and management systems have changed after the acknowledgement was granted. Further use of an Acknowledgement of Compliance is contingent on maintaining and following up the basis, prerequisites and other conditions given in the acknowledgement. If the prerequisites for the Acknowledgement of Compliance change, or the acknowledgement is based on erroneous information, the Acknowledgement of Compliance will no longer be valid.