Room for improvement found on Johan Castberg

Norwegian offshore safety body, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), has found several improvement points during an audit of Equinor’s Johan Castberg FPSO unit.

The PSA said on Tuesday that the audit, carried out on May 24 and 25, focused on design engineering and verification of sea ice loads on Johan Castberg hull.

The objective of the audit was to verify that the design engineering and associated verification complied with the regulations.

The safety watchdog added that no non-conformities were identified and that it found four improvement points.

Namely, the PSA identified quality controls of analyses, verification of specifications, the probability of collision with sea ice and icebergs, and combinations of sea ice loads with hydrostatic pressure as improvement points during the audit.

The agency told Equinor to report on how the improvements point will be assessed by July 12, 2018, at the latest.

Equinor, then Statoil, submitted the plan for development and operation of the Johan Castberg field located in the Barents Sea back in December 2017. The field development concept includes an FPSO and a subsea development with a total of 30 wells, 10 subsea templates, and two satellite structures.

The plan for development and operation of the Johan Castberg field was approved by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy last week following a parliamentary resolution.

The Johan Castberg partnership consists of Equinor (operator 50%), Eni Norge (30%), and Petoro (20%).