Magne Ognedal had his final working day as director general of the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority Norway on Friday 12 April. A prominent personality has thereby handed on a heritage which will call for courage and strength to maintain and extend.
His name has been synonymous with the development of Norway’s safety regime for the petroleum industry since 1980, when he became safety director at the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD).
He had joined the regulator in 1974, just a year after this body became operational following the decision to establish it by the Storting (parliament) in 1972.
Ognedal had only been in the safety director’s chair for a few weeks when the Alexander L Kielland flotel capsized in the Ekofisk area with the loss of 123 lives. That tragedy has influenced and motivated his work on safety ever since.
When the NPD was split up on 1 January 2004, he became the first director general of the newly created PSA and has served in this role for more than nine years before reaching the obligatory retirement age of 70.
Ognedal’s successor, Anne Næss Myhrvold, will start work on 2 May. Finn Carlsen will serve as acting director general during the period from 12 April to 2 May.
On his final day in office, Ognedal received an award from the safety delegate service in Statoil’s development and production Norway business area.
The citation reads in part that he has been given the honour “for many years of demonstrating wisdom and commitment in improving the working environment and safety in the petroleum industry on the Norwegian continental shelf ... and ... for his contribution to developing the PSA and the health, safety and environmental rules, and to giving the PSA the weight it carries today.”