PSA Norway Finds No Anomalies During Statfjord B Barrier Audit

During the period 2-4 February 2011, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) carried out an audit of selected technical and operational barriers in the process facility on Statfjord B. The audit is part of the processing in connection with the application for extended lifetime for Statfjord B(photo).

One of the PSA’s main priorities is maintenance of technical and operational barriers. The PSA is aware that the players have implemented regulatory requirements relating to barriers to varying degrees, at least as regards the intention. Deficiencies and impairments in one or more barrier elements’ performance is a general causal factor in incidents.

Strategies and processes for making barriers robust in the various phases of a facility’s life cycle have developed in different directions and have different maturity levels. There is a need to highlight common denominators and complementary properties between the barrier elements’ condition and performance, operational and maintenance management, and risk management.

The industry must be able to describe and implement work processes, and the individual elements in these processes, for barrier management in a lifetime perspective through:

* describing and highlighting the connection between risk and hazard assessment, the need for barriers and the barriers’ role in the individual area (strategies)

* identifying, describing and implementing performance standards for defined barriers and risk-influencing factors

* identifying conditions that could reduce the barriers’ performance over time (changed user conditions, degradation mechanisms, aging, incidents, etc.), establishing indicators for monitoring function and performance, and processes for making barrier function and performance robust enough to handle these conditions

* continuously improving the barriers and the system for barrier management

The objective of this activity was to assess how Statoil at Statfjord B safeguards maintenance of a selection of these key conditions.

Result

The audit was carried out as planned, with good facilitation by Statoil. The conversations were held in an open and good manner, and the participants were prepared, thoughtful and gave a technically-sound and good impression.

No nonconformities were identified during the audit. Three improvement items were identified related to inadequate strategy for follow-up of barriers, inadequate description of roles and inadequate overview of barrier status.

[mappress]

Source:Ptil  , April 1, 2011; Image:Statoil