PSA probes Statoil’s design engineering of Cat J rigs

The Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) Norway has carried out an audit of Statoil’s design engineering of Cat J drilling rigs.

The basis of the audit was Barriers and At-risk groups. The PSA said that the audit’s themes concerned occupational health and safety, drilling and well activities, materials handling and emergency preparedness.

According to the PSA, No non-conformities were detected during this audit.

Improvement points were identified in connection with: Performance of OHAS studies; Noise; Completion of crane studies; Access for maintenance of offshore cranes; Emergency operation of personnel winches; Lifeboat stations; Emergency preparedness analysis; Evacuation.

CAT J drilling rig

The specially-designed category J rig is able to operate at water depths from 70 to 150 meters and drill wells down to 10,000 meters. According to Statoil, it will be a workhorse primarily for drilling and completion of production wells. It is a tailor-made jack-up rig for operations in harsh environment on both surface and subsea wells in the shallow-water segments on the NCS.