Safety issues found during audit of Equinor’s Visund

Norwegian offshore safety watchdog, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found irregularities during an audit of Equinor’s Visund field, located in the North Sea.

The PSA said that the audit, conducted from November 20 to 23, 2018, took a look at materials handling, and safe use and maintenance of lifting equipment at Visund.

The safety body added that the objective of the audit was to follow up the company’s management of materials handling, to verify that the planning and execution of lifting operations comply with requirements, and to follow up the maintenance and condition of lifting equipment.

During the audit, two non-conformities were identified in connection with compliance measurements of lifting equipment in the drilling area and the MOB boat forerunners not being designed in compliance with the manufacturer’s requirements.

Also, the PSA found five improvement points regarding roles and responsibilities relating to logistics, specialists, pallet jacks in the warehouse, storage of MOB boat forerunners, local procedure, and speakers in crane cabins.

The safety watchdog told Equinor to report on how the non-conformities and improvement points would be addressed by February 15, 2019.

As for the Visund field, it is an oil and gas reservoir located 22 kilometers offshore northeast of the Gullfaks field in the Tampen area outside Norway. In 2017, it achieved an average production of 124,614 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

Onstream since the spring of 1999, the field has been developed with a floating production, drilling and quarters platform. 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 and exporting it to continental Europe on October 7, 2005.