Probe reveals flaws in Wintershall’s Brage barrier management

Norwegian offshore safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found a non-conformity during an audit of barrier management on Wintershall’s Brage field platform in the North Sea.

The safety authority said on Tuesday that the objective of the audit, conducted on October 26 and 27, was to assess how Wintershall is ensuring compliance with barrier management requirements for the operation and management of the Brage platform.

According to the safety agency, the identified non-conformity was in connection with the completion of the barrier management system.

In addition, two improvement points were discovered regarding inspection history for penetrations in firewalls and facility-specific information in performance standards.

The Brage field is Wintershall Norge’s first operated production field. It is located 13 kilometers east of Oseberg in the northern part of the North Sea, 125 kilometers west of Bergen.

Wintershall took over operatorship of Brage from Statoil in October 2013. The field was developed using an integrated platform on a steel jacket. The oil from the field is transported by pipeline to Oseberg and from there to the Sture terminal, while gas is transported through Statpipe.

The PSA informed Wintershall that the deadline to report on how the non-conformity would be dealt with and how the improvement points would be assessed is January 2, 2017.