Offshore safety regulator focuses on Johan Sverdrup Phase 2

Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has carried out an audit of Statoil’s follow-up of improvement processes during Phase 2 of the Johan Sverdrup development in the North Sea.

The PSA said on Thursday that it carried out the audit on March 9, and April 6 and 24.

The audit focused on how Statoil was ensuring that HSE risk is identified and accounted for in the work and decision processes involved in taking the Johan Sverdrup Phase 2 project forward.

During the audit, the PSA made observations regarding measurements and improvement of health, safety, and the environment, visibility of health, safety and the environment in strategies as well as the use of standards, identification of HSE risk in decision-making involved in taking the project forward, and follow-up activities.

The safety body told Statoil to report on how the observations will be addressed by August 7, at the latest.

Johan Sverdrup

As far as Phase 2 of the project is concerned, the agency said that the licensees have not yet submitted an application for the plan for development and operation (PDO).

The Johan Sverdrup field is being developed in several phases. Phase 1 of the development establishes a field center consisting of four platforms on the field. Phase 2 builds on this infrastructure, adding another processing platform to the field center. Overall this will result in a processing capacity of 660 000 barrels of oil per day.

In March 2017, the licensees of the Johan Sverdrup field decided to progress with Phase 2 of the development, and the front-end engineering design for this is under way.

Johan Sverdrup is an oil and gas field under development on the Utsira High in the North Sea, around 160 kilometers west of Stavanger. Water depth in the area is 110 to 120 meters. Statoil is the operator of the field. Production is scheduled to start in late 2019.