Russian and Norwegian industry: leading the way in the High North
The Barents 2020 project to safeguard petroleum activities in the Barents Sea has now entered its third and final phase. The expectations are high before the Moscow conference in December where the final results and recommendations will be presented. With leading experts from Russia and Norway assigned to the project, authorities and the industry itself agree that the premises for success could not be better.
And the project has indeed come a long way since its inception in 2007. Seven Russian-Norwegian working groups, under the leadership of DNV and with Gazprom in a key role on the Russian side, have met regularly over the past few months. Each group has been assigned one topic that has been deemed to be of crucial importance for the safe and sustainable development of petroleum activities in the Barents Sea. Now the project has reached its final and most practical phase, and involves industry participants and academia in addition to Russian and Norwegian authorities and scientific communities.
DNV Forum caught up with project manager Erling Sæbø during the last expert group meeting in Oslo in July. And Mr Sæbø, DNV’s man in charge since the inception of the project, is very optimistic regarding the progress so far. “We have an excellent team of experts on board and the work is progressing very well. I feel certain that the final recommendations will have a real impact, not least because of the high level of technical and scientific insight and the credibility of the scientists involved.”
And according to Mr Sæbø, the potential synergies as well as the benefits for both Russia and Norway are great. “Russia has extensive experience of cold climate operations while Norway has long experience of working offshore. This is truly a unique opportunity for us to draw on each others strengths and join forces to ensure an acceptable level of safety in the Barents Sea.”