Abstract
The purpose of this report is to give a brief introduction to different perspectives upon safety indicators and a presentation of authorities' use of indicators in UK, USA and Norway. The report elaborates on the complexity of comparing indicators. The main reasons are that indicators can serve different purposes, and they might be grounded on different perspectives and contexts. The report proceeds to present the development and use of existing safety indicators in UK, US and Norway. On this background it provides a brief discussion of aspects to be considered when comparing indicators from the three countries. The overall conclusion is that it is difficult to compare the safety status of the petroleum industry in UK, US and Norway through the use of safety indicators. Hence, it is also difficult to compare the effect of the different regulatory regimes that the authorities of these countries represent. However, a comparison might be useful if the purpose is to learn more about how indicators might function, what for and for whom they might be useful, and how indicators can be used for regulatory purposes. Comparisons must take contextual factors such as for instance features of the actual regulatory regimes into consideration.
