Offshore safety body finds nine non-conformities during Kristin audit

Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found irregularities during an audit of Equinor’s Kristin platform off Norway.

The PSA said that the audit, conducted from June 7 to 14, took a look at Equinor’s operations within materials handling, use and maintenance of lifting equipment and scaffolding/access techniques.

The safety watchdog also assessed Equinor’s and its contractors’ practices within regular working environment mapping and follow-up of working environment risk, especially for SIP personnel, catering personnel, and process operators.

The audit identified nine regulatory non-conformities and six improvement points.

The improvement points were in connection with follow-up of findings after controls performed by an enterprise of competence for lifting equipment, compliance measurement of the offshore cranes and management system for safe use of lifting equipment, and lifting equipment and loading areas.

Other non-conformities regard scaffolding, access techniques, mapping of workload and assessment of the risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders, noise and vibration, management of the organizational and psycho-social working environment, and cooperation between the occupational health services.

The improvement points observed during the audit were linked to roles and responsibilities, competence in the repair and maintenance of lifting equipment, unsecured lifting equipment, cargo deck, marking of the cargo deck, and safety marking.

The PSA told Equinor to report on how the company intends to address the non-conformities identified by October 31, 2018. The company will also deliver an assessment of the improvement points observed.

This is the second audit of the Kristin platform this year following the one carried out from March 19 to 22 which was a follow-up of vibration and cable chafing at the platform.

Kristin

Discovered in 1996, the Kristin gas and condensate field is located in the south-western part of the Halten Bank in the Norwegian Sea. It has been developed with 12 production wells in four subsea templates, tied back to a semi-submersible production platform.

Located in the reservoir 5,000 meters below the seabed, the field came on stream on November 3, 2005.

Daily production capacity from the Kristin field is 125,000 barrels of condensate and just over 18 million cubic meters of rich gas. Pressure and temperature in the reservoir – at 900 bar and 170°C respectively – are higher than on any other field so far developed on the Norwegian continental shelf.