In the premises at PST in Nydalen, there has been a lot of work in recent days. The reason is obvious, it is PST that is supposed to prevent sabotage in the North Sea and the Barents Sea, investigate it, and constantly assess risks. According to senior researcher at Nupi Karsten Friis, just such sabotage attacks are far from unthinkable. – I don’t think it will happen tomorrow, but we have to take this scenario seriously, he says. At the same time, PST says that they do not have sufficient means to prevent these actions. Will be able to monitor more PST can today prevent and investigate terrorist threats using so-called invasive methods. It includes wiretapping and data mining. However, they cannot use these methods when working to prevent sabotage, says assistant PST manager Hedvig Moe. PST asked for this in a consultation response to the Ministry of Justice from last year. – When it comes to preventing sabotage, we could imagine having better methods at our disposal. This means the use of coercive measures such as computer reading and telephone tapping, Moe continues. Has warned for many years PST has warned against sabotage against oil and gas installations for many years, including through its annual threat assessments, and a separate report in 2020. But now the situation is even more critical. – We consider that the threat is even higher now that Russia invaded Ukraine and Norwegian gas has become more important, says assistant PST manager Hedvig Moe. She says the threat can consist of both intelligence, sabotage and network attacks. At the same time, PST emphasizes that they do not know who is behind the explosions on the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea or the drone activity at several platforms. CRITICAL: Norwegian oil and gas account for around 40 per cent of all exports from Norway, and around 20 to 30 per cent of all consumption in large countries such as Great Britain, France and Germany. Photo: Equinor / Jan Arne Vold and Elisabeth Sahl – Many chefs A Nupi report from 2018 warned of similar threats, particularly with regard to cyber attacks. Among other things, ambiguities were identified in the areas of responsibility for the various actors. Karsten Friis is a senior researcher and head of the Security and Defense Research Group at the Norwegian Foreign Policy Institute (Nupi). Photo: Øyvind Bye Skille / news – What we saw was that there were a lot of cooks, says Karsten Friis, who helped write the report. – The companies themselves have primary responsibility for their own safety. But as soon as there are serious incidents, the state steps in. Then there are many ministries and agencies: the Petroleum Safety Authority, the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, and so on. Who is responsible for what and when? This was quite unclear, explains Friis further. news has been in contact with both the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Oil and Energy to get a response to the criticism. None of the ministries have had the opportunity to respond today.
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Need better tools to prevent sabotage in the North Sea – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
