Gullfaks – The first “Norwegian” field

English was both the natural and necessary working language during the early years of the oil industry on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS). A large proportion of the workforce was foreign and, in many cases, the terms used lacked Norwegian equivalents. As time passed, however, native personnel accounted for a larger and larger proportion of the total, and using English was no longer as pressing. But the Norwegian terminology was lacking.

Oil in Norwegian

As early as 1975, and again the following year, Statoil gave grants of NOK 20 000 to the Norwegian Language Council and the Council for Technical Terminology. This helped to realise a dictionary for the petroleum industry (Ordbok for petroleumsvirksomhet), which listed Norwegian, English and French terms used. But few drill floor workers carried it in their back pocket.

Young Norwegian engineers with growing self-confidence and linguistic awareness also contributed to a “Norwegianisation” of the industry’s language, as veteran Statoil executive Jakob Bleie recalled:

There was a lot of arrogance in the American companies. ‘We know how to do this, and we’ve been doing it for years, and this is something you Norwegians don’t need to worry about’. And we who were young then and sat listening to this, began to get massively irritated because they behaved in many ways as if they were coming to an underdeveloped country without educated people. And we decided at an early stage that this was something we should manage ourselves. We would manage it ourselves. And language, of course, becomes in many ways an important part of the overall picture.[REMOVE]Fotnote: Jakob Bleie interviewed by the Norwegian Term Bank, 1996, Norsk i hundre!: 146.

This view, with exploration manager Bleie as the spearhead, made increasing headway among employees in the sector. Apart from wanting to speak their own language to bolster a self-image, they advanced a further argument for Norwegianisation – safety.

According to linguistics professor Johan Myking, Norway’s first big oil terminology debate arose in the wake of the Ekofisk Bravo blowout in 1977. The discussion centred on what a “blowout” was to be called in Norwegian. English was perceived not only as a threat to the status of the native language, but also a safety risk.

“Research shows that, when crises occur, you automatically switch to your mother tongue,” says professor Øivin Andersen, who participated in the pioneering work of fitting Norwegian to the industry.  “If you don’t have sufficient terminology and technical language to handle emergencies, that’s clearly a safety risk.”[REMOVE]Fotnote: https://forskning.no/sprak-partner-olje-og-gass/slik-fikk-oljebransjen-et-norsk-sprak/633112.

All Norwegian

Gullfaks was the first oil field on the NCS which had only Norwegian licensees from the very start and a native operator. Esso was the technical assistant on its discovery in 1978, with Conoco taking over this role during the development phase.

In 1982, Statoil decided that Gullfaks would use Norwegian for work and administration. Since the language lacked petroleum terminology, the operating manuals were written first in English and then translated. That was paralleled by Terminol, a terminology project at the University of Bergen which produced the Gullfila (Gold File) word bank with specialist terms recast in Norwegian. This task ranked as the largest single terminology project in Norway. Work on the word bank continued and ultimately resulted in a dictionary published both on paper and in digital form.[REMOVE]Fotnote: Petroleumsordliste, 1988, Kunnskapsforlaget; NOT for Windows, 1994.

The Norwegianisation job was by no means straightforward. Translating computer texts and signage began in September 1985 and lasted until May 1986. Eleven terminology experts and a number of specialists were involved in the project, dealing with 25-30 000 text strings in computer systems and up 30 000 signs on equipment, switchboard cabinets, control and overview panels, and so forth.

It is not difficult to imagine that problems can arise when terminology experts have to translate thousands of specialist oil terms – which are often abbreviated, might be misspelt and are even misleading in the original language. That the work may be tiring can be illustrated by the following quote from the final report: “When, for example, NCS and HCS are both spelling errors for MCS, which stands for main control station and is to called ‘hovedkonrtrollenhet’ [misspelt in the Norwegian text]”.[REMOVE]Fotnote: Norske Språkdata no 12, “Oppsummering av et fornorskningsprosjekt – skilt og datasystemer på Gullfaks A”. Other challenges arise when the terminology experts discover inconsistencies or direct errors in the material they are to translate: “How do we operate as philologists in the heart of engineers country?”[REMOVE]Fotnote: Ibid.

According to the final report, the solution was to supply lists of such problems to the technical specialists in order for them to come up with an assessment. The deal with the university was worth NOK 1.6 million, and Statoil devoted a total of NOK 5 million over several years to securing a Norwegian standard for teaching materials, operating manuals and signage on the Gullfaks A platform.

That allowed the company to establish a technical terminology in the national language. And the English monopoly on the NCS was definitely breached when Norway’s Norsk Hydro group, as operator, also chose Norwegian as the sole working language on the Oseberg field.

The oil price slump in 1986 could also be said to have had linguistic consequences, since Norwegian-speaking offshore workers became cheaper than Americans. National oil terminology was thereby reinforced.