Offshore safety body spots irregularities on Statoil’s Oseberg Øst

Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found several irregularities during an audit of Statoil’s management of major accident and working environment risk at the Oseberg Øst (East) platform, offshore Norway.

PSA said on Friday that the audit was conducted from April 25-30, 2016.

The objective of the audit was to assess how the company’s management engages with, determines and follows up the decision basis for prioritizing, planning and executing operations in the remaining life of the platform, including the assessment of technical condition, barrier management, maintenance, and modifications.

During the audit, interviews, meetings, and verifications were carried out onboard the platform as well as onboard the Safe Scandinavia TSV (Tender Support Vessel) which is supporting operations at Oseberg Øst.

In the report, PSA said that Statoil plans to apply for extended life for Oseberg Øst which sparked a new drilling program with the support of the TSV.

Furthermore, Statoil presented actions taken for life extension of the platform. Statoil informed the PSA of completed, ongoing and planned projects and modifications, including the upgrading of drilling facilities and drinking water system, and updating of the program for preventive maintenance among others.

PSA also said that the audit revealed four non-conformities linked to simultaneous operations, pressure control equipment, communications equipment and data transfer between Oseberg Øst and the TSV.

Also, four improvement points were identified, linked to OHAS, governing documents in a pressure control situation, technical condition and maintenance of offshore cranes and emergency shutdown valves.

The safety body informed Statoil that the deadline to report on how the non-conformities and improvement points will be dealt with is November 1.

Oseberg Øst is the smallest platform in the Oseberg area in the North Sea and it lies 25 kilometers northeast of the Oseberg Field Centre, which is some 130 kilometers northwest of Bergen.

The field is developed with an integrated drilling, accommodation and production platform with equipment for first phase processing. It came online on May 3, 1999, and now has a maximum output of 75,000 barrels of oil per day.