Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found improvement points during an audit of MOL Norge’s first drilling operation on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
The PSA said on Monday that it conducted the audit of the Hungarian operator’s Norwegian subsidiary on August 14, 2018.
MOL Norge recently applied for consent for exploration drilling of well 2/6-6 S in the North Sea. This is the company’s first operated drilling operation on the NCS.
The consent was awarded last week and the drilling of the well is planned to start in September 2018. The operations are planned to last between 66 and 71 days. The PSA said that the well was aimed to investigate a prospect named Oppdal/Driva using the Rowan Viking drilling rig.
The PSA added on Monday that the topic of the audit was site-specific analyses of load-bearing structures. Using spot checks, the offshore safety body checked how MOL Norge monitored structural issues relating to site-specific analyses at the drilling location.
No regulatory non-conformities were identified, but the safety watchdog observed certain improvement points, which MOL Norge needs to assess by September 27, 2018.
The improvement points included erosion around the legs, low collision frequencies of visiting ships, wave crest height, and missing assessments of seismic loads.