Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found irregularities during an audit of Equinor’s drilling and emergency preparedness on the Statfjord C platform.
PSA said on Monday its the audit identified one regulatory non-conformity which applied to function testing of boosters for the shearing function of blowout preventers.
The objective of the audit, conducted from June 1 to 7, was to verify that Equinor has established systems for ensuring necessary well control competence and the integrity of well control equipment. The audit also looked at robust emergency preparedness organization on Statfjord C so that a well control incident can be handled effectively.
During the audit, the PSA focused on the presence of established processes to ensure that assumptions, prerequisites, limitations, and recommendations in the emergency preparedness analysis for Statfjord C were catered for and that these were communicated out to the emergency preparedness organization. The offshore safety body added that the probe looked if Equinor was working systematically to prevent major accidents.
The safety watchdog also found improvement points linked to the use of emergency preparedness resources and systems for training and drills.
Statfjord was discovered by Mobil in 1974, and Equinor took over the operatorship on January 1, 1987. The North Sea field has been developed with the Statfjord A, B, and C production platforms, which all have concrete gravity base structures incorporating storage cells.
Statfjord C began production on June 26, 1985. According to Equinor, the field is likely to remain in production until 2025.