Safety watchdog to keep an eye on Eni’s Goliat FPSO

Norway’s offshore safety regulator, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has decided to carry out a full safety audit of Eni’s Goliat FPSO in the Barents Sea, following a number of incidents last year. 

According to a report by Dagens Næringsliv, a Norwegian news website, the agency will in January start the audit of Eni’s Goliat FPSO after the company reported 34 incidents on the unit during last year.

The cylindrical FPSO has been closed for over a week now after a routine inspection found a damage on an offloading hose. The company made plans to repair the damage but the efforts depend on the weather. Before this, the unit was shut down in August due to a power outage. The offline period last for about a month and it came back online at the end of September.

Since its start-up in 2016, the FPSO was closed five times, the Norwegian news website stated. In addition, a worker suffered serious head injuries while on board the FPSO in June 2016.

Offshore Energy Today has reached out to the safety authority seeking confirmation and further details about the agency’s plans.

In an e-mail, a spokesperson for the PSA said: “The PSA is conducting a planned supervisory activity at Eni, which began in December 2016 and will continue throughout 2017. This activity is directed at Eni’s management of risk as well as the prevention of undesirable incidents and accidents on the Goliat FPSO.”

“A number of undesirable incidents have occurred on this facility since it came into use. Deficiencies have been discovered in operational preconditions for start-up and use as well as with the planning and execution of activities.

The spokesperson further added: “Eni has acknowledged a general need to improve management of risk and to implement measures for dealing with and taking account of uncertainty. The company has initiated a major project to deal with this.

“Our supervisory activity aims to follow up Eni’s improvement processes. We will look at how the company is working systematically on follow-up and improvement and how it evaluates this work, in order to assure ourselves that safety and working environment conditions are acceptable and that the need for further improvements has been identified.”

We’ve also reached out to Eni seeking comment regarding the PSA’s focus on the FPSO in the Barents Sea and a progress report on repairs to the damaged hose. Eni was not immediately available for comment.

The article has been updated with a statement by the PSA. 

Offshore Energy Today Staff