The Scandinavian country is well-known for its rigorous oil
production safety standards. VANCOUVER: Calgary-based Enbridge
has offered improvements to its Northern Gateway pipeline to
boost safety beyond “state-of-the-art,” but BC Premier Christy
Clark is looking at a standard much further afield. Clark said
that Norway, one of the world’s largest exporters of crude oil,
is a model for rigorous safety standards and is perceived to
have among the highest spill management capacities in the world.
“We’re looking to those models and saying, ‘They’ve minimized
the risk, they’ve figured out how to do this, maybe we can do
the same,’” Clark said earlier this week. According to Norway’s
independent regulatory body, the Petroleum Safety Authority,
safety standards are authored and strictly enforced by oil
companies, unions and the government. The organization’s website
states that while petroleum operations are never fully secure,
the risks of a pipeline spill can be mitigated by training
workers, designing quality fa