Statoil handed Heimdal safety orders

Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) carried out an audit of operations, maintenance and pressure safety focused on Statoil's and Gassco's land organizations and the Heimdal main platform (HMP) and Heimdal riser platform (HRP).

The audit was conducted between 22 and 29 September 2016.

“Our objective was to monitor the management of operations, maintenance, safety-critical equipment and pressure-safety systems in particular on HRP and HMP, in relation to the company's own and the authorities' requirements. The allocation of responsibilities and tasks between Gassco as the operator and Statoil as the technical service provider catering for the functioning of the facility was key to the audit,” the PSA said.

According to the report, the audit identified seven non-conformities in relation to the petroleum regulations. The non-conformities concern the management of activities on HMP and HRP, barrier management, fire protection within the plant, the independence of the process safety systems, governing documents, Gassco's supervisory responsibilities and alarm management in the control room at Bygnes.

“We also detected three areas with potential for improvement. These areas are alarm management in the control room at Heimdal, the company's (Statoil's) own follow-up, and deficiencies in the system for equipment labelling and defective labelling in the plant,” the PSA said.

Based on the findings made during the audit, the PSA has now given Statoil notice of the following order:

• Demonstrate through production of short- and long-term plans for operation and maintenance that sufficient personnel will manage operational and maintenance tasks on the facilities and that the maintenance program and its execution are adapted to the age and condition of the facilities and equipment.
• Ensure that barriers which have been weakened or are non-functional are identified, evaluate the combination of weakened barriers, and ensure that requisite compensatory measures are implemented and that a plan is in place to improve barriers that are non-functional or weak.
• Demonstrate that the gas-transport system connected to the Vesterled pipeline satisfies the regulatory requirements for two independent process-safety systems.