Norwegian oil company Statoil has informed that a fire broke out on Sunday aboard its Statfjord A platform, in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
According to Statoil at 8:20 am CET on Sunday October 16, the platform manager reported smoke and fire in a utility shaft on Statfjord A. No injuries have been reported. At 11:00 am the platform manager reported that the fire was extinguished.
The fire started in a loading pump in the utility shaft and was restricted to one area that is separated by fire barriers. When the smoke was detected, the automatic deluge system was triggered, Statoil said.
The emergency response organization on Statfjord A has worked on extinguishing the fire. The area is now being monitored by the fireguard, Statoil said.
There were 67 people on board when the incident occurred. At 10 am, 20 people had been moved to Statfjord B by SAR helicopter.
Production at Statfjord A was shut down and crew on board without emergency response assignments were sent to the lifeboats. They are now being gathered for a debriefing on the platform.
Statoil’s emergency response organizations at Sandsli and in Stavanger were mobilized. Two SAR helicopters are at the field and the emergency response vessel Stril Herkules is in the area, the company said.
An investigation team for the Norway’s offshore safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), headed to the platform on Monday. The aim of the investigation is to clarify the events and identify the triggering and underlying causes of the incident.
Statfjord A is a production platform that has a concrete substructure and storage cells. The Norwegian part of the Statfjord field is located in blocks 33/9 and 33/12 in license 037 and contains both oil and gas.
Songa rig evacuation
In a separate development, Statoil said that on Saturday, October 15 a well control incident occurred off Norway on the drilling rig Songa Endurance prompting the company to evacuate non-essential personnel. More here: https://bit.ly/2dupbZy