A. Organisational Character and Role of NOFO
NOFO is a co-operating association of operators on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, and not an independent business enterprise.
An operator is defined in the “Act Pertaining to petroleum activities” as follows: “When granting a production licence, the Ministry shall appoint or approve an operator who shall conduct the day-to-day management of activities which are carried out pursuant to the licence.”
At present all the operators on the Norwegian Continental Shelf are members of NOFO. If an operator should choose not to be a member of NOFO he would have to establish his own organisation with capacities equal to that of NOFO.
The object or role of NOFO is to establish and maintain a contingency program aimed at combating oil pollution. This includes elements such as common administration of purchased and leased equipment, coordination of oil recovery vessels, personnel, maintenance of contingency plans etc.
NOFO's contingency, equipment and strategy shall primarily be aimed at, and have as its priority, the combating of major spills associated with activities set forth in the above mentioned act. That is: Uncontrolled blow outs or other major oil spills on the Norwegian Continental Shelf caused by the oil industry.
The guidelines to the regulations in question issued by Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the Ministry of the Environment and the Directorate of Health stipulates recognised standards for preparedness against acute oil pollution. The standards that regulate NOFO's activity include the following:
a) 25% of the oil pollution control equipment based on dimensioning oil spill (8,000 m 3shall be operativewithin 24 hours.
b) The remaining oil pollution control equipment for recovering 8,000m 3shall be operative within 48 hours. NOFO's governing bodies are:
The General Assembly
All NOFO members are represented in the General Assembly.
The sphere of responsibility incumbent on the General Assembly is as follows:
- Approve all agreements
- Approve budgets
- Approve accounts
- Approve the annual report
- Elect the Board, the chairman and vice-chairman of the Board
- Elect auditor
- Elect the election committee
- Approve the associations overall plan / strategy
The Board
The responsibility of the Board is:
- Draft Budgets
- Draft accounts
- Draft annual reports
- Draft the Associations overall plan / strategy
- To appoint the Managing Director
- To work out the job instructions for the Managing Director
- To determine the salary of the Managing Director and the salary frames for all other staff
- To approve administrative procedures
- To implement quality assurance audits
The Administration
- The permanent administration takes care of the day-to-day operation of NOFO.
