Joint emergency response centre established

Maintaining a separate emergency response organisation is a resource-intensive business for companies which have small staffs in Norway. For this reason, a feasibility study was launched in 2008 to investigate the best way of handling the function. The OFFB is the result of that work.
The association will administer and maintain second-line response for its members in connection with their exploration for or production of oil and gas. Its main job is to manage response services tailored to the operations being pursued by member companies. Plans call for it to be operational by 28 February next year.

Expertise
“Our goal is to ensure a high level of expertise and effective handling of possible incidents, and to be an important supplement to emergency response work by the operators,” says Anita Utseth, chair of the OFFB.
Its organisation will comprise a core of roughly 10 employees, and it will also work for collaboration with the commercial players in the market.

Coordinate
The association is charged with coordinating measures, resources and services for tackling emergencies and undesirable incidents in the response organisations of the oil and gas companies.
“Operators are responsible for maintaining an effective response,” observes Ms Utseth. “We’ll be an integrated part of our members’ response organisations in line with the applicable legal and regulatory requirements at any given time.”
The initial members of the OFFB are Wintershall Norge, Det norske and Centrica. Bridge Energy, Discover Petroleum, E.ON Ruhrgas Norge AS and OMV (Norge) AS are associate members.
Other companies have also indicated that they intend to affiliate with the association in due course.
The Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF) has contributed support during the start-up phase for the OFFB.

Further information from
Anita Utseth, chair, Operator Association for Emergency Response, mobile: +47 97 73 08 96 
Kjetil Hjertvik, communications manager, OLF, mobile: +47 92 23 70 69