Eni slapped with orders from safety watchdog after Goliat probe

Norwegian offshore safety watchdog the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has issued orders to Italian oil company Eni following an audit of logistics and employee participation on the Goliat FPSO, in the Barents Sea. 

Following an audit by the PSA conducted on the Goliat FPSO during the period 5-7 January 2016, the Italian company received a notification of orders earlier in February, which is now followed by two orders by the PSA. A notification of order is the first step before an administrative decision is made.

The audit, which identified serious breaches of the regulations, was conducted as a follow-up to an audit carried out in June 2015 linked to logistics on Goliat.

In conformity with the notification sent out earlier, Eni is now issued with the following orders:

– Implement measures to correct the non-conformities presented in section 5.1.4 of the report.
– systematically review and map all areas and systems within logistics and assess compliance with requirements for materials handling and lighting;
– present a binding and time-delimited plan with a deadline for corrective measures following the mapping, and a statement of priorities as regards the measures, along with a description of any compensatory measures which will be implemented until the non-conformities have been corrected.

In addition, Eni is ordered to:

– Conduct a coherent review of, complete and implement its management system for logistics. As part of the above, it must be ensured that:

– roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and understood;
– relevant requirements are applied and visible;
– necessary information is disseminated to relevant users at the right time;
– non-conformities are systematically registered and followed up;
– employee participation is ensured – competence and training are ensured.

According to the safety authority, the deadline for complying with the above orders is set at March 9, 2016.

The Goliat field, dubbed the world’s northernmost offshore development, was originally planned for first oil in 2013, but it has yet to produce a single barrel of oil.

In August 2015, Eni Norge said the start of production was just “a few weeks” away, but those few weeks have now spilled over into 2016.

The Goliat field, located 85 kilometers offshore Hammerfest, is being developed with a cylindrical floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit that arrived at the Goliat field location on May 7, 2015, after a short stop-over in the fjord outside Hammerfest. The Goliat FPSO was designed by the Norwegian company Sevan Marine in Arendal and built at the HHI yard in South Korea.

The field is estimated to hold about 174 million barrels of oil. The cost of the development had originally been set at $5.06 billion, but the figure has now surpassed the $6 billion mark.