The way we did it 

 

Einar Kilde is in no doubt. Hydro has built up a unique project organization over several decades, he tells us. The five hundred employees at Hydro Projects represent the company’s collective memory when it comes to project implementation and engineering.

Experience garnered from a large number of Hydro projects has been preserved in the organization and further developed via new challenges. Hydro's unique project expertise is now combined with Statoil's project experience to form the Projects business area in StatoilHydro.

“We place considerable emphasis on building up comprehensive risk pictures in this type of project,” says Kilde. We need a broad overview of all imaginable situations that may arise and that can be envisaged to create delays in the project. This ensures that we are fully prepared for all eventualities and makes it easier to prioritize where we are going to focus our efforts, explains Kilde.

Hydro invested considerable resources in the early phase of the project, which Kilde believes has been one of the success factors. Experienced project organizations dare to spend money early on, he explains.

It is always a lot more efficient to prevent events from happening than to make changes after the damage has occurred. In Ormen Lange we were well prepared, which we drew on during the implementation itself.
 
However, the risk handling did not stop there. “You need to continuously update the organization regarding the risk picture and avoid pitfalls,” says Kilde, and you must do this at all levels of the organization, so that the implications of what we are doing are clear to everyone at all times.
 
The meticulous preparations were one of the reasons why the development at sea was carried out with few injuries.
 
“I am more delighted about that than anything else,” Kilde emphasizes. The fact that those who were involved in building the facility were able to return home in as good a health as they were in when they set out on the enormous task.