Prosafe slapped with safety order after ‘Safe Scandinavia’ probe

Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has turned a notification of order to Prosafe into a formal order as a result of the company not fixing irregularities found during an audit of the Safe Scandinavia tender support vessel (TSV) in September 2015.

The Safe Scandinavia is an accommodation rig converted to a TSV in 2015 enabling it to assist in production drilling on fixed installations by processing drilling mud and cuttings.

The rig is currently under contract with Statoil at the Oseberg Øst installation, off Norway.

An audit of the conversion conducted by the PSA in September 2015 revealed ten non-conformities and four improvement points.

As a follow-up, the safety agency carried out yet another audit of the Safe Scandinavia from September 19-21, 2016, to see how Prosafe handled non-conformities identified during the September 2015 probe.

PSA said mid-November that some of these non-conformities, notably relating to maintenance management, were not followed up by the company. The safety body stated that it was ‘a serious breach of the regulatory requirements for follow-up and non-conformity handling.’

In regards to the breach, the agency issued a notification of order which is not considered an administrative or legally binding instrument but rather a first step before an administrative decision is made.

On Friday, the PSA said that Prosafe was handed an official order which is ‘a preventive instrument legally binding on the recipient.’

The safety watchdog said in the order: “We order Prosafe AS to review the company’s system for follow-up of identified non-conformities, such that the non-conformities are rectified, the causes mapped and corrective measures implemented in order to prevent recurrence of the non-conformities. The outcome of the measures is to be evaluated.”

Prosafe was given a deadline of January 15, 2017, to comply with the order.

The Safe Scandinavia was built in 1984 at Aker Verdal yard to an Aker H-3.2 design. It was upgraded in 2003 and completed a life extension refurbishment in 2014.