Johan Sverdrup audit uncovers non-conformities

The Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found two non-conformities and six improvement points during an audit of the Statoil-operated Johan Sverdrup project. 

The PSA said on Tuesday that it conducted the audit from November 8 to 16, 2017.

The audit was carried out to ensure that Statoil ensured compliance with the regulatory requirements for barrier management and robust operations on the processing platform (P1) and the riser platform (RP) at Johan Sverdrup.

The objective of the audit was to verify that Statoil’s management and follow-up of barriers complied with the company’s and the authorities’ requirements.

The audit also monitored that the implementation of the design and installation documentation for Johan Sverdrup complied with the preconditions in the plan for development and operation (PDO), with the regulations, and with recommended standards. This entails Statoil ensuring that the contractor, Samsung, is familiar with the design assumptions.

The PSA said that it detected two non-conformities regarding measures for protecting rooms and equipment from fire and solution for programmable logic control of firewater pump.

The safety body also found six improvement points related to the firewater system, possible weakening of firewalls, preservation of electrical facilities and equipment, short-circuit protection, system for mechanical completion and testing, and planning of training and practice in use of simulation tools

Johan Sverdrup is one of the five largest oil fields on the Norwegian continental shelf. The field is being developed in several phases. The total resources at the field are estimated to between 2.0 and 3.0 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

Phase 1 consists of four platforms which make up the planned field center for Johan Sverdrup. Phase 1 is expected to start up in late 2019 with production capacity estimated at 440,000 barrels of oil per day.

Phase 2 is expected to start up in 2022, with full field production estimated at 660,000 barrels of oil per day. Peak production on Johan Sverdrup will be equivalent to 25% of all Norwegian petroleum production. Concept decision for Phase 2 was made in 2017, and the selected concept consists of another processing platform (P2), modifications to the riser platform and subsea wells.