PSA spots safety breaches on Statoil’s Sleipner complex

Norway’s offshore safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has identified several safety breaches during an audit of Statoil’s Sleipner complex, offshore Norway.

PSA said on Thursday that the audit, done from April 1 – 8, aimed to verify that Statoil’s management and follow-up of barriers complied with the company’s and the authorities’ requirements.

According to the safety agency, this entails knowing which barriers have been established and which function they are to fulfil, as well as performance requirements defined for specific technical, operational or organizational barrier elements necessary for rendering the individual barrier effective.

The organization added that the monitoring of Statoil is systematical at all levels, and its goal is to prevent any major accidents.

During the audit, a non-conformity was identified relating to the emergency shutdown system while improvement points were identified regarding risk reduction, decision support and decision-making criteria, risk identification, and uncertainty in risk analyses.

Statoil has been given a deadline of June 22 by the PSA, to report on how the non-conformity and improvement points will be dealt with.

Sleipner was discovered in 1974 and is located in the North Sea, about 250 kilometers west of Stavanger, Norway. Since coming on stream in 1993, it has produced almost two billion barrels of oil equivalent.

The Sleipner area consists of the gas and condensate fields Sleipner Øst, Gungne and Sleipner Vest. The Sleipner installations are also processing hydrocarbons from the tie-in fields Sigyn, Volve, Gudrun and, from 2017, Gina Krog.