{"id":16846,"date":"2022-10-10T06:51:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T06:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/the-oil-industry-is-not-sufficiently-prepared-news-norway-overview-of-news-from-various-parts-of-the-country\/"},"modified":"2022-10-10T06:51:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T06:51:25","slug":"the-oil-industry-is-not-sufficiently-prepared-news-norway-overview-of-news-from-various-parts-of-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/the-oil-industry-is-not-sufficiently-prepared-news-norway-overview-of-news-from-various-parts-of-the-country\/","title":{"rendered":"– The oil industry is not sufficiently prepared – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

– We would have liked to have had more time to prepare the industry, says Sofie Nystr\u00f8m, director of the National Security Authority NSM. Only this summer was gas pipelines to Europe defined as a fundamental national function. This means, among other things, that it was not until last summer that the management in the industry was able to receive highly classified information about threats. Director of the National Security Authority NSM, Sofie Nystr\u00f8m, is critical of this. – Could it have affected the ability to prevent sabotage? – Resilience and preparedness are best built in deep peace, and we would have liked to have had a little better time. – So the answer to the question is yes? – We would have liked to have had better time, says the director of NSM, Sofie Nystr\u00f8m. Sofie Nystr\u00f8m is director of the National Security Authority. – We would have liked to have had better time, says the director of NSM, Sofia Nystr\u00f8m. Photo: Oda Hveem \/ Oda Hveem Kim Traavik, former top Norwegian diplomat, was given the job of leading the committee that was to make proposals for a new security law. It entered into force on 1 January 2019. – It is remarkable and objectionable that it has not been decided until this autumn that gas pipelines to Europe are defined as a fundamental national function. We have lost a lot of time, says Kim Traavik. – Norwegian gas is a target of sabotage Norway is the world’s third largest gas exporter, only behind countries such as Russia and Qatar. In recent years, Norway has covered between 20 and 25 percent of the total gas consumption in the EU and Great Britain. Before Russia attacked Ukraine in February this year, EU countries imported close to half of their gas from Russia. Several EU countries are now trying to reduce their dependence on Russian gas. With the explosion in the Baltic Sea on the Russian gas pipelines last week, the value of Norwegian gas to Europe increases considerably. The Swedish public prosecutor notes that explosions have occurred at Nord Stream 1 and 2. – Norwegian gas is probably the biggest target of sabotage in the whole of Europe right now, said researcher at the Norwegian Defense Academy, Geir H\u00e5gen Karlsen, to news. A satellite image taken on 26 September shows the gas leak at the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. Photo: AFP PHOTO \/ HO \/ PLANET LABS PBC \u2013 Resistance The new security law that came into force in 2019 is a kind of compromise, explains Kim Traavik. He says that new vulnerabilities as a result of digitization and a worsening security picture after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 were part of the background when the so-called security committee was set up in 2015. – But it was also an attempt to settle a conflict. Much of the disagreement surrounding the security act in force at the time focused precisely on the extent to which the so-called regulations for property security should also apply within the oil and gas sector, says Traavik. He says that after a number of attempts had been made to reach agreement on this, an expert committee was set up which he chaired. The committee should come up with a new legal basis for national security, and at the same time contribute to resolving the disagreement about the law’s application to the oil and energy sector, says Traavik. Kim Traavik, former top Norwegian diplomat, was given the job of leading the committee that was to make proposals for a new security law. – It is remarkable and objectionable that it has not been decided until now that gas pipelines to Europe are defined as a fundamental national function, says Traavik. Photo: Gard Brox Jensen \/ news He believes that the oil and gas industry, together with the Ministry of Oil and Energy, has for many years resisted being included under the safety act. – Has concern about costs contributed to the fact that the industry and the ministry have been skeptical? – Yes, of course. We also know that from our committee work. In addition to that, it must be said that it costs to carry out systematic and solid security work to protect installations and infrastructure against espionage and sabotage. But what really costs is if such estimates are successful. Then you will be able to cause real damage to Norway’s fundamental security interests, says Traavik. Only this summer According to the new security act, each ministry must identify companies and industries in their sector that are defined as basic national functions, so-called GNF. Subsequently, companies within such a field will be subject to the Security Act. Only this autumn, the transport of gas in pipes to Europe was designated as GNF within this sector by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. In 2021, “Ability to protect the petroleum business against security-threatening activities” was designated as GNF for the petroleum sector. news’s \u200b\u200baccess to documents shows that the state-owned Equinor only became partly subject to the Security Act in July this year. A similar decision was made on 26 August for the state-owned company Gassco AS, which has operator responsibility for the transport of gas from Norway to Europe. Security clearance What does it mean in practice that two areas within oil and gas have been defined as a basic national function, GNF, and that two of the companies are partially subject to the Security Act this summer and most recently in August? – Gassco and Equinor are now in a position to be able to point to personnel who will receive security clearance and thus highly classified information about threats, and about what the intelligence services and NATO are warning about, so that they can close the vulnerabilities, says Sofie Nystr\u00f8m of the National Security Authority (NSM). – And that hasn’t been possible until now? – No, it happened around the summer. So both businesses now have the opportunity to receive very important information, says Nystr\u00f8m. NSM is Norway’s directorate for preventive national security. The directorate gives advice on and carries out inspections and other control activities on the civil and military side, related to securing information, systems, objects and infrastructure of national importance. – I would have liked to have had a little better time She says that for many years NSM has wanted the oil and gas industry to be defined as a fundamental national function. That it is happening now is gratifying, is the diplomatic way she expresses herself. – We have a wide toolbox, which we can now use. Specifically, we are now working on testing security, just as a state threat actor does. We check access card systems, or we hack into them, she says. She points out that they use the same techniques that advanced state threat actors do, and report back to close vulnerabilities. – If you are not part of the safety act, then there is a part of these measures that we do not have the opportunity to use, and which the industry has missed out on, says Nystr\u00f8m. – I believe that a lot of time has been lost. Kim Traavik also believes that this has taken far too long. – I think it has taken a very, very, very long time. It should be completely unnecessary for it to take this long. Norwegian gas supply to Europe will be a very critical resource in the coming winter and, according to experts, an obvious sabotage target. Traavik believes we have lost valuable time in protecting this sector. – I mean that a lot of time has been lost. Now I hope that we will make up for some of what was lost. It is great that this is now being done, but it is far too late, he says. – Specifically, the situation we are in now, where Norwegian oil and gas can be a sabotage target, are we worse off than we could be? – If I have to answer yes or no to that question, I would probably say yes. Because it takes time to build up a safety culture based on the requirements laid down in the law. It takes time to train, it takes time to create the necessary understanding in the organisations. – How serious do you think it is? – It is clear that it is worrisome that it has taken so long, and it is very unfortunate that we have lost so much time, says Kim Traavik. Equinor does not want to respond to the criticism, and refers to the interest organization Offshore Norway. Communications manager for working life and operational conditions Kolbj\u00f8rn Andreassen writes that “The industry has not been opposed to coming under the safety act. – What we have been concerned with is getting a sensible introduction of the law which is adapted to our business”, he writes. The Security Act, as it currently works for the petroleum industry, is well adapted to the security risk that has arisen as a result of the war in Ukraine, writes offshore Norway to news. – Of course former Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland (Ap) has been presented with the statements from Kim Traavik. He chooses to answer this. – For me, it is important that the oil and gas companies that carry out important production on the NCS and Gassco as the operator can get access to information that is graded so that they can make the right decisions at all times. Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland (Ap) at K\u00e5rst\u00f8 in Rogaland, Thursday this week. Photo: Marthe Synn\u00f8ve Susort Johannessen \/ news – NSM says that this may have affected our ability to ward off sabotage from Russia? – I believe that we have a very good line of communication between Gassco and Equinor and the authorities now. Now there is an opportunity to share classified information that is important for security. – Ever since 2013, NSM and PST have wanted the oil and gas industry to come under the safety act. Why hasn’t it happened before, and is only happening now, when the crisis is here? – I would have liked to have seen this included in the Security Act earlier. But for me it has been important to make it happen quickly when I became a minister, says Aasland.
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– We would have liked to have had more time to prepare the industry, says Sofie Nystr\u00f8m, director of the National Security Authority NSM. Only this summer was gas pipelines to Europe defined as a fundamental national function. This means, among other things, that it was not until last summer that the management in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18,533,16,14,645,15,17,1017,8176],"class_list":["post-16846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-country","tag-industry","tag-news","tag-norway","tag-oil","tag-overview","tag-parts","tag-prepared","tag-sufficiently"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}