'Out of control'

Last Thursday, Norwegian oil company Statoil partly evacuated the Gullfaks oil rig off the western coast after unexpected fluctuations in pressure were encountered while drilling.

The company said all 89 non-essential workers were taken off the rig as a precaution, while the other workers remained to normalize well pressure.

That task, however, has proved more difficult than thought, with pressure levels still unstable six days later.

Pressure fluctuations no light issue

Statoil spokesman Gisle Johanson told Deutsche Welle that "highly variable pressure levels" in the rock formation being drilled were most likely the cause of the sudden pressure change, adding that this "happened from time to time."

He said that, although the situation was still not completely normalized, the pressure levels were now virtually under control.

"I underline that we have now been able to handle the pressure in the well, and that we assess the potential for leakages as very low."

Statoil, which has been drilling in the North Sea for over 20 years, has never suffered a blowout or a major spill. Still, Johanson said, unstable pressure levels were nothing to take lightly.

"We always take pressure problems in the well as very serious, and we do our best to do what we can to re-establish the full, normal safety situation in this well as soon as possible."

Comparisons to BP disaster

Environmental groups in Norway, meanwhile, have been quick to lash out at Statoil for what they see as an increasingly uncontrollable situation.

Fredric Hauge, the president of the Bellona Foundation, an environmental NGO based in Oslo, said Statoil was concealing the extent of the danger at the Gullfaks rig.

"This is a completely unacceptable situation with regard to all security principles for the Norwegian shelf," an impassioned Hauge told Deutsche Welle.

"And, furthermore, I think it's very cynical of Statoil to fail to communicate this. They are scared now, because there are definitely similarities between what's happening at the Norwegian shelf and what's going on at BP in the Gulf [of Mexico]," he added.

Strange circumstances

Norway's state-run petroleum safety watchdog has been monitoring the situation in Gullfaks carefully since pressure levels began fluctuating there last week.

Inger Anda, a spokeswoman at the authority, told Deutsche Welle that normal pressure disturbances should not take this long to normalize.

"We sometimes see such instances of pressure variation in this industry, but it rarely happens that such a long time is needed to regain control of a well," Anda said.

Anda also called it "very serious" that only one protective barrier is currently all that is preventing leakage of oil and gas in the Gullfaks well.

She hesitated, however, to draw comparisons between the Statoil and BP situations.

"It's also difficult to compare situations before you know exactly what they're working on. We know the safety situation and the risk measurements that they are taking just now, but we don't know the details and we haven't been comparing it to other incidents so far."

In the history of Norway, which has been drilling for oil for decades, there has been one major spill. In 1977, a blowout occurred at a rig off the country's southern coast, resulting in leakage of some 30,000 tons of oil.

That amount has already been exceeded in the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster, to which there is still no end in sight.

Author: Gabriel Borrud

Editor: Susan Houlton