Norway: Storm rips door off Knarr FPSO

An incident has occurred on a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit in the North Sea offshore Norway operated by oil major BG Group that is soon to be acquired by another major, Royal Dutch Shell. 

According to the Norwegian media reports, on December 30, 2015, a strong storm tore off a door from a storage cabinet on the Petrojarl Knarr FPSO owned by Teekay and on a time charter for BG Group.

When asked about the incident, the spokesperson for the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority said: “We received a notification from BG Norge on December 30th about an incident on Petrojarl Knarr where a door to an outside cupboard was ripped off.”

The spokesperson also added: “The outside area was closed off due to the weather conditions when the incident happened. The door was found during an area inspection.”

No injuries have been reported as the workers rarely find themselves in the area where the incident had happened. The vessel is moored on the Knarr field, discovered in 2008, approximately 120 kilometres off the Norwegian coast.

The FPSO Petrojarl Knarr was delivered in 2014, it has a production capacity of 63 000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and a storage capacity of 800 000 barrels. It is 256.4 m long and accommodates 100 people.

This is yet another one in line of incidents that occurred in the North Sea lately due to the harsh weather, fortunately without fatal consequences.

Offshore Energy Today reached out to BG Group seeking further information of the incident. Should there be any further details about the incident, the article will be updated accordingly.

BG Group is the operator of the field with a 45% working interest. Partners include Idemitsu Petroleum Norge (25%), Wintershall Norge (20%) and DEA Norge (10%).

The production from the Knarr field started in March 2015. Not long after that, a fire broke out on board the vessel disrupting the production and causing a shutdown. The production was re-started a week later.

Offshore Energy Today Staff