Irregularities spotted during safety probe on Haven rig

Norwegian offshore safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found irregularities during an audit of the Haven accommodation rig working on the Johan Sverdrup field.

Haven; Source: Master Marine
Haven
Haven; Source: Master Marine

The PSA said on Monday that the audit, carried out from September 3 to 6, was conducted to verify regulatory compliance within the management of emergency preparedness and the helideck.

A non-conformity was observed in relation to fire stations as well as improvement points relating to training of the emergency preparedness organization and evacuation from lifts.

Haven is a Master Marine-owned jack-up accommodation rig operated by OSM Offshore which can accommodate 444 people. The rig was issued with an Acknowledgement of Compliance (AOC) by the PSA in 2011.

The PSA told OSM Offshore to report on how the non-conformity would be addressed and for an assessment of the improvement points observed by November 16, 2018.

It is worth noting that the rig has been in use as a quarters facility on the Equinor-operated Johan Sverdrup field since June 2018.

Equinor awarded a contract to a subsidiary of Master Marine for the provision of the Haven rig back in November 2015.

Before the start of operations on the field, UAE-based provider of rig services Lamprell completed an upgrade to the mobile operating unit Haven and turned it into an accommodation rig.

The contract for the Haven rig upgrade was awarded to Lamprell in September 2016, and it involved procurement, construction, and installation of extended legs and new suction caissons.

Johan Sverdrup

The giant Johan Sverdrup oil field in the North Sea offshore Norway is being developed in two phases.

The first phase involves the establishment of a field center consisting of four platforms, including a utility and living quarters platform, a processing platform, a drilling platform and a riser platform, three subsea installations for water injection, power from shore, export pipeline for oil (Mongstad) and gas (Kårstø). The platforms will be interlinked by gangways. This phase is expected to start production in November 2019.

As for the second phase, Equinor submitted the field development plan to the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in August 2018.

The second phase covers the development of another processing platform (P2), modifications of the riser platform and the field center, five subsea templates, in addition to power from shore to the Utsira High in 2022. Production start expected in the fourth quarter of 2022.