Safety body finds room for improvement on Statoil’s Visund A

Norwegian oil and gas safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found several non-conformities and improvement points during an audit of drilling and well operations on Statoil’s Visund A.

PSA said on Monday that the audit of Visund A, conducted from March 29 to April 7, was focused on how Statoil safeguards the planning and execution of drilling and well operations on Visund A.

According to the safety body, the objective was to verify that Statoil and its contractors in the Visund organization meet the regulatory requirements.

The PSA found three non-conformities concerning the diverter system in the BOP stack, pressure control equipment, and the company’s follow-up and assessment of maintenance, maintenance effectiveness and maintenance history in the drilling rig.

Also, the safety regulator found five improvement points. Namely, the audit identified improvement points in connection with certified well-control competence for individual job positions, roles and requirements for competence concerning risk assessments, identification and description of safety-critical tasks.

The remaining two points regard information for the safety delegate service and information dissemination and employee participation in connection with change processes

The PSA asked Statoil to report on how the non-conformities will be dealt with by September 25, 2017.

As far as the field itself is concerned, Statoil-operated Visund is an oil and gas field 22 kilometers north-east of the Gullfaks field in the Tampen area of the Norwegian North Sea. Developed with a floating production, drilling and quarters platform, the field came on stream in 1999.

The subsea-completed wells on the field are tied back to the floater with flexible risers. Oil is piped to Gullfaks for storage and export. The Visund field began producing gas in October 2005.

Offshore Energy Today Staff