A discussion of the acceptable risk problem

The petroleum activities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf are subject to regulations issued by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. One important issue in these regulations is the use of acceptance criteria, and this paper discusses some philosophical aspects of acceptance criteria for risk, and the role of statistical decision theory within safety management. Statistical decision theory has been applied in several studies within the nuclear industry, but has not been fully adopted within the petroleum activity. The discussion concludes by listing important measures to manage the acceptable risk problem.