Footbridge Collapses Between ‘Floatel Superior’ and ‘Kvitebjorn’

Floatel International, a Sweden-based owner of accommodation units for the offshore oil and gas sector, has been hit with another safety incident in less than a year. 

A footbridge, used everyday by 100 workers who walk from the Floatel Superior accommodation unit to the nearby Kvitebjorn platform in the Norwegian part of the North Sea, was destroyed due to the bad weather in the area on Sunday evening.

Several offshore workers were forced to spend the night at the Kvitebjorn platform. Nobody was hurt in the incident. According to HRK.no, the workers were given a clean T-shirt, a lunch box, a toothbrush and a pair of socks each.

As mentioned before, this is the second safety issue with the Floatel Superior in less than a year. To remind, the unit was involved in a serious stability incident at the Njord field which occurred in November last year. Statoil, the operator of Njord, had to evacuate 374 workers which were on board at the time. The incident was caused by an anchor which had pierced the ballast tank at the unit.

In May this year, Statoil received approval from the PSA Norway, to use the Floatel Superior to accommodate necessary personnel during Kvitebjorn maintenance work. The operations were expected to be completed by October 2013, but, following the latest incident, the expected deadline will probably be missed.

The Floatel Superior is a dynamically-positioned (DP-3) semi-submersible facility with a living quarters module aft and an open work deck forward.  The flotel can accommodate 440 people in single cabins when operating on the Norwegian shelf. It was completed in March 2010 at Keppel FELS shipyard, Singapore. The facility is operated by Floatel International AB (FIAB) in Gothenburg.