THE Oil and Gas Authority has announced plans to test firms on how collaborative they are as it renewed calls for greater cooperation in the industry amid tough trading conditions in the North Sea.

The regulator said it wants to see the firms that own oil and gas fields move faster to develop cultures that will promote collaboration within their organisations and in their dealings with partners.

The OGA has developed a tool with industry partners that will provide an assessment of collaborative behaviours, which will be brought into service across the North Sea this year.

Firms that operate fields will have to complete the assessment every two years.

They may be asked by the OGA to submit an improvement plan within six months of the review which will focus on the improvement of relevant behaviours.

The Collaborative Behaviour Quantification Tool will covers areas such as approaches to negotiations, attitudes to change and to learning from experience.

Led by Andy Samuel, the OGA wants an increase in collaboration as part of the wider change in behaviour it reckons is needed in the industry in response to the crude price plunge.

.Mr Samuel said : “Over the last two years, we have seen many positive examples of collaboration between companies leading to solutions to long-running issues ..., there remains more to do.”

Research on cost overruns in the North Sea published by the OGA last month highlighted the damaging effects of adversarial approaches to business, which may have become engrained during the boom that ended in 2014.