Managing the Environmental Effects of the Norwegian Oil and Gas Industry: From Conflict to Consensus

In the early days of exploitation of the oil resources on Norway’s continental shelf there was little control over environmental impacts. The oil companies expected effects of their activities to be found to a 1 km radius round platforms. In the late 1980s data started appearing that suggested that effects were over much larger areas. These findings were disputed but subsequent studies showed that a more realistic figure of the area affected was a 3 km radius giving roughly 10 times the area predicted by the companies. The Norwegian authorities reacted by imposing restrictions on discharges of oil-based drilling cuttings and since 1993 oil-based drilling mud or cuttings have not been intentionally discharged to sea on the Norwegian shelf. In 1996 Norway changed its offshore monitoring from field based monitoring of sediments to a regional monitoring of both sediments and the water column. The change makes it possible to obtain a better overview of the environmental conditions, at the same time it also reduces costs for the operators.