The “Accord Acts”¹ provide that an operator may propose using codes, standards, methods, procedures, etc., other than those prescribed in the regulations administered by the Board and that such applications may be approved where they provide an equivalent level of safety and/or environmental protection and/or resource conservation. In other words, the Acts recognize that technological advances continue to be made, that there are other ways of achieving the objectives of the regulations, and that it is necessary to enable such advances to be applied to activities undertaken in the Newfoundland Offshore Area. The codes and standards specified in the regulations provide the threshold reference against which such proposals are to be considered.

In order to deal with questions regarding the interpretation of the regulations and with applications for use of alternative methods, codes, standards, etc., the Board has established a process under which each such request is considered formally on its own merits.

Under this process, the applicant is required to submit a Regulatory Query Form (RQF) summarizing its request and containing the rationale and justification for the request. If the question is technical in nature, or touches upon a matter affecting ultimately the Certificate of Fitness for the installation to which the application refers, the Board’s process also requires that the matter be reviewed by the Certifying Authority (CA) for the installation and that the application indicate, by way of a signature of an officer of that Authority, whether the CA concurs with the proposal.

The Board also conducts its own assessment of each application consulting other experts where it considers it necessary to do so. In each case, a summary of the review results, together with a recommendation as to the disposition of the application is prepared by the officer who is assigned responsibility for the review. The recommended disposition of the application may be a rejection, an approval, or an approval with conditions. The applications are then reviewed by the Manager of the relevant department of the Board, who must approve the recommendation before bringing it to the Board’s Chief Safety Officer and/or Chief Conservation Officer for final approval. The Chief Conservation Officer is involved if the application deals with matters affecting environmental protection or resource conservation.

The Certifying Authority is required to verify that the installation has been built in accordance with any approved RQF before it issues a Certificate of Fitness for the installation.

This process has been and continues to be used for Hibernia. During the course of construction of the Hibernia platform, the Board processed several hundred RQF’s.

¹ Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, R.S. 1985, c.3 (3rd Supp.)
Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Newfoundland Act, R.S.N. 1990, C-2