Nevertheless, we believe we are making a significant effort to prevent future accidents from occurring.

Approximately 4,400 cubic metres of crude oil leaked into the sea on the Statfjord field during offloading to a tanker on 12 December 2007.

After the incident, StatoilHydro initiated several environmental investigations in order to identify and evaluate possible environmental impacts. The work was carried out in open cooperation with external experts in addition to our in-house technical expertise. The environmental reports from Sintef, the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) concluded that the oil spill did not cause any demonstrable environmental harm.

Three days after the incident, there were no longer any visible traces of the oil on the sea surface. Analyses show that after a couple of days 25% of the oil had evaporated and 15% had dissolved. The rest of the oil had been mixed into the water as droplets, gradually dissolving and degrading.

The measurement of oil components in fillets of fish from the North Sea caught in December and January indicate that all components were below the detection limit. It would therefore seem that the spill has not reduced the quality of North Sea fish catches. Analyses of oil components in fish liver showed slightly higher oil values in haddock during the first days after the spill than previously, but this was not the case for cod and pollack. No dead birds were found after the oil spill.