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§ 1 Purpose

The purpose of these regulations is to
  1. promote high standards for health, safety and the environment in activities covered by these regulations,
  2. achieve systematic implementation of measures to comply with requirements and achieve the goals laid down in the working environment and safety legislation,
  3. further develop and improve the health, safety and environmental level.
Section last changed: 01 January 2011

These are joint regulations for the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion, the Ministry of Climate and Environment and the Ministry of Health and Care Services, and thus cover several areas of law. Reference is made to the purpose clauses in the enabling acts, in particular the Working Environment Act, the Pollution Control Act (in Norwegian only) and the Petroleum Act.
Technological development entails e.g. an ever closer integration of onshore and offshore petroleum facilities. The onshore facilities become more important in a comprehensive development perspective. More and more operations on the shelf are monitored or remote controlled onshore, and jobs are moved from or split between onshore and offshore. This development illustrates the need for joint regulations and coordinated authority follow-up of the operator's management of the activities, regardless of whether it is onshore or offshore.
The regulations form the basis for such coordinated regulations and supervision in the area of health, safety and the environment in the activities, see Section 2 with guidelines.
These regulations and the supplementary regulations will insofar as possible also, through guidelines, provide an overview of the rules governing health, safety and the environment in the activities. However, it should be noted that it is difficult in this connection to provide a full overview of the Product Control Act (in Norwegian only) with regulations or regulations in pursuance of the Pollution Control Act (in Norwegian only) that also apply to the activities. There is a lot of activity in these areas, and parts of these regulations are updated more frequently than the current joint health, safety and environment regulations.
Further, reference is made to regulations laid down by the Ministry of Labour 6 December 2011, pursuant to the Working Environment Act, and entering into force 1 January 2013. These regulations apply directly to the petroleum activities also, with the specifications and limitations given in the regulations. The requirements of these regulations must be complied with as an integrated part of the comprehensive regulations for the petroleum activities, relating to health, safety and the environment. In addition, reference is made to the lawmirror (in Norwegian only) of the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority, in which the requirement of the regulations that are being repealed upon entering into force of the new regulations in pursuance of the Working Environment Act, are included.
It follows from the enabling acts, with somewhat different wording, that the level of health, safety and environment in the activities shall be in accordance with the technological and social development in society at all times.
In this connection, we particularly emphasise that the health concept is given a significantly different content than what follows from the health concept in the Working Environment Act. Here, the health concept also includes the entire health legislation, cf. also the guidelines for Section 2.
The regulations include safety, working environment, health, external environment and financial assets (including production and transport regularity). Measures implemented in one of these areas will normally also have a positive effect on the other areas. To the extent measures would be in conflict, the consideration for human life and health shall prevail.