Norway’s safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found several non-conformities and improvement points during an audit of Statoil’s management of operations and barriers at Gullfaks B platform in the North Sea.
The Gullfaks field has been developed with three integrated facilities with concrete bases and steel topsides; the processing, drilling, and accommodation platform.
The field is located in the Tampen area in the northern part of the North Sea in a water depth between 130-220 meters. The oil is shipped from the field by tanker, while the gas is piped to the processing facility at Kårstø. Production from the Gullfaks field began in 1986.
The current licensees on the field are Statoil as the operator with a 51 percent stake, Petoro with 30 percent, and OMV Norge with 19 percent.
The PSA said on Tuesday that during the audit it found seven non-conformities relating to competence in respect of maintenance of hydrocarbon-carrying systems, documentation for overhauling and recertifying BOPs, manning for monitoring and control, ventilation in electrical switchgear room, chemical exposure, deck gratings in gangways, and labelling of pipe systems, valves, and equipment.
The offshore safety body also found four improvement points in connection with strategies and principles for barrier management, descriptions of maintenance tasks and feedback requirements, a list of cutting forces for cutting drill strings, and noise conditions.
The aim of the audit, conducted from November 21-29, 2016, was to see the standard of Statoil’s management and follow-up of barriers regarding the regulations and the company’s requirements.
The audit was conducted in the form of meetings at Statoil’s offices in Trondheim and as verifications on board Gullfaks B.
PSA informed Statoil to report on how the non-conformities will be dealt with and how the improvement points will be assessed by February 27, at the latest.