Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) Norway has recently carried out an audit of Statoil’s planning of Johan Castberg floating production and offloading vessel (FPSO).
The audit covered primarily the design of the facility with a view to cold-climate operations and was restricted to materials handling, the working environment and technical safety, PSA explained.
PSA inspected whether Statoil is planning Johan Castberg FPSO in compliance with the requirements in HSE regulations for the petroleum activities and balancing different safety and working environment concerns.
Furthermore, the objective was to obtain information and assessments from Statoil for use in PSA processing of the application for approval of the plan for development and operation (PDO) for Johan Castberg.
During the audit PSA discovered one improvement point linked to assessment of and technical solutions for the removal of snow and ice.
Johan Castberg will be the northernmost facility on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and must be designed to operate safely in the intended location, PSA said.
Statoil submitted an application for approval of the plan for development and operation (PDO) for Johan Castberg in December 2017.
Recoverable resources from the Johan Castberg are estimated at 450 – 650 million barrels of oil equivalent, and the first oil is scheduled for 2022.
Johan Castberg is a big subsea development, which includes 30 wells, 10 subsea templates and two satellite structures.
The Johan Castberg partnership consists of Statoil (operator 50%), Eni (30%) and Petoro (20%).