Equinor ordered to address safety issues at Snorre, Norne

Offshore staff

OSLO, Norway – The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has issued orders to Equinor to address safety issues identified at two platforms.

Last December, the Snorre B platform in the North Sea underwent an emergency shutdown due to a high level of liquid in a flare knockout drum.

The incident was due to an unstable oil level gauge in a produced-water degassing tank, causing the latter to shut down.

To stabilize the processing facility and maintain production, automatic shutdown functions were overridden for high liquid level in both the tank and the flare knockout drum.

Following subsequent engagement between Equinor and the PSA, it emerged that there is an acceptance that safety features may be overridden in individual cases, as happened in this case with the degassing tank in this case, in order to maintain stability in the processing facility.

But this does not comply with requirements concerning safety systems in the Activity Regulations, section 26.

Equinor must now put in place routines for its facilities to ensure that overriding of safety systems is in accordance with regulatory requirements.

The second order follows the PSA’s audit of the company’s integrated risk and barrier management on the Norne FPSO in the Norwegian North Sea, conducted last September.

The Authority was seeking evidence that barrier functions were in place to detect, manage, and limit the consequences of maritime incidents at the field.

One area of focus was barrier functions to handle the risk of safety incidents not caused by vessel collisions.

The audit identified eight nonconformities, including barrier management with a loss of stability; human-machine interface and alarm handling in the control room; emergency preparedness analysis; obstacles in emergency exits; and assessing the consequences of the worst process fire.

Equinor must address these concerns and other proposed improvement points by May 1.

02/23/2021