Safety watchdog spots irregularities during Teekay FPSO audit

Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority, has found several irregularities and improvement points during an audit of Teekay Petrojarl, a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) operator in the North Sea.

PSA’s audit, conducted aboard the Knarr FPSO, focused on overall barrier management, examining the interactions between operational, organizational and technical barrier elements.

The safety body said on Friday that the objective of the audit was to monitor regulatory compliance concerning barriers and to verify that technical, operational and organizational barrier elements have been maintained in an integrated and consistent manner to minimize the risk of major accidents to the greatest extent possible.

Also, PSA said that the residual risk must be properly handled through well-planned emergency preparedness and a robust emergency preparedness organization.

The audit identified two non-conformities in regards to barrier strategies and the training of emergency responders.

Furthermore, four improvement points were noted during the audit, in connection with competence, performance-influencing factors in the central control room, maintenance management and flanges on the turbines’ gas pipe.

PSA told Teekay that the deadline to report on how the non-conformities and improvement points will be dealt with is August 31.