The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) carried out on May 20, 2015, an audit of Statoil’s implementation of the planned control room solution for the production platform on Valemon gas and condensate field in the Norwegian North Sea.
Statoil-operated Valemon field lies in blocks 34/11 and 34/10 in the northern North Sea, west of the Kvitebjørn field, around 160 kilometres west-north-west of Bergen. Water depth at the site is 135 metres.
According to the PSA, Statoil is planning for the production platform on the field, over time, to be manned for two weeks and unmanned for four weeks. The platform will then be controlled from an onshore control room. When the platform is manned, the control room at Valemon will also be manned.
The PSA has had several meetings with Statoil concerning the choice of control room solution. The audit carried out was a follow-up to these meetings, the auditor says.
The purpose of the audit, the PSA explains, was to verify that the solution chosen by Statoil was being implemented prudently and in compliance with the regulations.
The audit was conducted at Statoil’s premises at Sandsli in the form of presentations and interviews, and covered topics including the need for manning for maintenance, manning of the control rooms, emergency preparedness management, use of CCTV, employee participation, working environment, and human factors.
“The PSA is of the opinion that Statoil has a systematic approach to the challenges associated with moving the control function onshore,” it has been said in the auditor’s press release.
[mappress mapid=”2485″]