Reversing the trend through collaboration in the petroleum industry

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of bipartite and tripartite cooperation in the Norwegian petroleum industry and how it contributes to improve safety conditions. Lack of trust between the parties and pressure on the Norwegian model has great attention in this industry today, related to major cost reductions and downsizing the last 2–3 years. We discuss these challenges and how to re-build trust between the parties. The empirical material is mainly based on qualitative data from the ongoing four year RISKOP research project (Managing Risks in Offshore Operations). In addition, the data is based on a document study about the safety conditions and collaboration in the petroleum industry.