OKEA needs to improve plans for first NCS drilling operations

Norwegian offshore safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found improvement points during an audit of OKEA’s planning of its first drilling operations on the NCS.

The PSA reported on Friday that it had carried out an audit of OKEA’s planning and preparations for drilling exploration wells 6407/9-11 and 6407/9-12 on August 28.

The wells belong to production licenses 093 and 093D and will be drilled close to the Draugen field in the Norwegian Sea. OKEA is the operator of the licenses with partners Petoro and Neptune.

These are the company’s first own-operated exploration wells on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, and the audit is part of the PSA’s case processing of OKEA’s application for consent for exploration drilling.

The PSA added that the objective of the audit was to verify the company’s management of health, safety, and the environment (HSE) and emergency preparedness in planning and preparing for undertaking their first drilling operations on the NCS.

During the audit, no non-conformities were identified, but it did identify three improvement points.

Namely, the improvement points relate to inadequate follow-up of internal requirements for the drilling operations, inadequate follow-up and documentation of internal requirements for the selected well control procedure, and deficient use of own management system for documentation of non-conformities.

The safety authority told OKEA to submit its assessment of how the improvement points would be handled by October 14.

It is worth reminding that OKEA secured the Odfjell Drilling-owned semi-submersible rig Deepsea Nordkapp in late April to drill for opportunities within and surrounding the Draugen field. The drilling operation is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2019.

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