Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has conducted an audit of Eni Norge (Eni) and its follow-up and management of electrical facilities on Goliat FPSO in the Goliat offshore oil field in the Barents Sea. The audit identified regulatory breaches related to managing risk and barriers, and the Italian major has now been given notice of a order.
Conducted on 15-19 October, the audit aimed to follow up how Eni is complying with technical, operational and organisational regulatory requirements for electrical facilities on the Goliat FPSO unit. It was a follow-up to an earlier audit of Eni covering electrical safety and responsibility for electrical facilities on Goliat, which led to an improvement of Eni’s work on following up Ex-motors, of training and procedures for the electrical discipline, according to PSA.
However, the PSA’s observations from the latest audit revealed that faults and deficiencies still exist which, until they are corrected, ‘represent a source of uncertainty which makes a negative contribution to the risk picture for the Goliat FPSO‘.
Following the audit, the PSA held a meeting with Eni on 14 November, where the company presented aspects related to its management of major accident risk and measures already initiated to correct the nonconformity related to fire dampers.
Non-conformities and improvement points
The audit identified non-conformities in the following areas:
- fire dampers
- emergency shutdown system
- emergency power – uninterruptable power supply
- emergency lighting
- safety systems, monitoring and control
- electrical installations
- training, organisation and operating procedures
- maintenance of safety critical equipment and functions
- evacuation from rooms containing high-voltage installations
- handling non-conformities
- risk and barrier management
An improvement point was also identified, related to the availability of power in the emergency sick bay.
The PSA’s audit showed improvements in a number of areas on the Goliat FPSO compared with earlier conditions. Nevertheless, deficiencies have been identified in key elements related to managing risk and barriers.
On that basis, Eni has been given notice of order, relating to Eni’s follow-up of the technical condition of safety-critical barriers and outstanding safety-critical work. Namely, Eni is ordered to ‘draw up a realistic and binding plan for completing outstanding safety-critical work‘. That also includes completing the status of the technical condition of safety-critical barriers.
The deadline for compliance with the order is 1 March 2019. The PSA must be informed when the order has been carried out. Eni has been asked to explain to the PSA by 15 January 2019 how the other non-conformities will be dealt with. The PSA has also requested the company’s assessment of the improvement point which was observed.
Once a response has been received from Eni, the PSA will take the initiative to hold a meeting with the company in order to review and verify the various responses. The meeting will take place by 20 February 2019 at the latest.
