About the Norwegian Maritime Directorate

About the Norwegian Maritime Directorate

Published: 19. September 2006. Updated: 19. September 2006.

The Norwegian Maritime Directorate is a government body sub-ordinated the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Environment. The directorate has jurisdiction over ships registered in Norway and foreign ships arriving Norwegian ports. The directorate’s main goals are to prevent accidents and to achieve a high level of safety for lives, health, vessels and the environment.

In cases concerning environmental issues that are connected to a specific ship, and the protection of the marine environment, the directorate sorts under the Ministry of Environment. The Norwegian Maritime Directorate also assists the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway in implementing the petroleum legislation on the Norwegian shelf. The directorate is also responsible for the supervision of leisure boats.

The Norwegian Maritime Directorate has three key tasks:

• To ensure and contribute to Norwegian ships keeping the highest level of safety and environmental standards.
• To ensure and contribute to sailors on board Norwegian ships having good qualifications and good working and living standards.
• To ensure that foreign vessels in Norwegian waters and ports keep in line with national and international laws and regulations.

Working methods and means of action.

Working with norms, supervisions as well as ensuring high-quality attitudes among sailors and shipping companies is a key agent of the Norwegian Maritime Directorate’s activity.

The aim is to turn the activity in the direction of superior control and both resources and organisational developments in the directorate are arranged towards working within this principal. The Norwegian Maritime Directorate is an active part in the development of international rules and regulations at sea, and these laws are implemented in to Norwegian law, whether it is rules concerning IMO, ILO, Paris MoU or Norwegian obligations in the EEA-agreement.

Norms define the framework for building and running ships. The development and revision of these norms are based on experiences derived from accidents or near mishaps, research and risk analysis. The directorate goes to great length in order to ensure that these norms are  adequate and user friendly. The supervisions and controls are a combination of document inspections, periodical controls and unannounced inspections of vessels. The directorate’s attention is also focused on operational conditions with the revisions on board ships and at shipping companies.

Information

A key part in the preventative safety work at sea is to inform the users and the public. The way we think in regards to safety is constantly under development and knowledge concerning the subject must be arranged in a proficient way. Changing of behavioural attitudes should be considered as an alternative and is a vital supplement to rules and regulations. Other examples on informational measures from the Norwegian Maritime Directorate are notifications, safety notices, circulars, statistics of accidents and incidents, conferences and seminars, press releases and other information material. A vital channel of communication is the directorate's web page, which is under constant development.