Two workers airlifted from Statfjord B following switchboard room incident

Two workers were evacuated on Tuesday from Equinor’s Statfjord B platform offshore Norway after being exposed to smoke following a short circuit in a switchboard room.

Norwegian offshore safety watchdog,
the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), said on Wednesday that it was
investigating an incident involving personal injuries which occurred on the
Statfjord B platform in the North Sea.

The incident occurred on Tuesday, 18
August 2020. The incident happened in the switchboard room on the platform when
a short circuit started creating smoke.

According to the safety watchdog, two
people were exposed to smoke and had to be airlifted to hospital for medical
treatment.

The PSA regards the incident as
serious, prompting it to launch an investigation. A team of its specialists has
already started the investigation.

The main objective of the
investigation is to identify the causes of the incident and possible lessons to
be learnt and share this information with the industry.

The offshore regulator added that
during the investigation it would carefully review the course of events, uncover
and describe the actual and potential consequences of the incident, and identify
direct and underlying causes.

The PSA will also apply necessary
enforcement powers to correct possible regulatory breaches, make public its
findings, and transfer experience to other players in the petroleum sector.

Statfjord is a field in the Tampen
area in the northern part of the North Sea, on the border between the Norwegian
and UK sectors.

The Norwegian share of the field is
85.47 per cent. The water depth in the area is 150 meters. Statfjord was
discovered in 1974, and the plan for development and operation (PDO) was
approved in 1976.

The field has been developed with
three fully integrated concrete facilities: Statfjord A, Statfjord B, and
Statfjord C. Statfjord A, centrally located on the field, came on stream in
1979. Statfjord B, in the southern part of the field, in 1982, and Statfjord C,
in the northern part, in 1985.

It is worth reminding that operator Equinor and its partners identified and approved plans to extend production from the field towards 2040.