Managing the total risk picture
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the Ekofisk field in the North Sea. It also marks that 40 years have gone since DNV took a leap into the offshore industry, drawing heavily on long experience and unique technological know-how from the maritime sector. Today we are an acknowledged partner within the oil and gas industry, and our knowledge and competence are sought after worldwide.
The common denominator of everything we do is services for managing risk. We help our customers identify, assess and manage risk. Our basic assumption is simple; risk can be good. Because where there’s no risk, there’s no reward.
Thus the purpose of risk management is not to eliminate risk, but rather to understand it so that one can take advantage of the upside and minimise the downside. This requires clarity. Both with regard to what and how much risks one is prepared to take. And it requires that processes are in place to manage these risks. We believe risk management should be an integral part of good business practice, both at a strategic and operational level and enables leaders to turn risks into opportunities.
Many of our customers come to us for help with what we call Enterprise Risk Management. This is a cross-disciplinary approach for identifying and managing the overall opportunities and threats in a company. The approach takes into account all dimensions of risks, and is designed to help companies assure that identified risks are managed properly. Not least by giving our customers’ stakeholders a clearer picture of the opportunities and threats they’re facing.
Today there is almost no more “easy oil and gas” to be found. The recovery of new resources is increasingly challenging both from a commercial and technological perspective. A major part of the yet to find oil and gas reserves are expected to be found in the Arctic. These resources are not easily accessible and the project execution, environmental and people risks must be managed to the highest professional standards. One recent example to proactively address the challenges in the Arctic is the Russian and Norwegian oil and gas industries working closely together to develop industry standards for operations in the Barents Sea. This project – The Barents 2020 – is led by DNV.
40 years ago DNV took a successful leap into the oil and gas industry. But we didn’t linger there. Within the cleaner energy and climate change sector we now offer a variety of risk-based services aimed at building trust in the new and slowly emerging low-carbon economy.
This issue of DNV Forum will address some of these issues and many more.
Enjoy the read.
Henrik O. Madsen
President and Chief Executive Officer
日付: 23 October 2009