Norwegian Safety Authority Says Statoil Breached Regulations in Gudrun Leak
Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has roundly and directly criticised Statoil for a condensate leak at its Gudrun facility that occurred on 18 February 2015, saying the company seriously breached regulations.
In a statement issued on February 1, the PSA said that it had notified Statoil of the results of its one-year investigation into the leak. As a result of that investigation, it said had identified a number of serious breaches to the country's regulations. The breaches it highlighted are as follows:
- weaknesses in Statoil’s fulfilment of its responsibilities
- insufficient robustness in the design
- deficiencies in information management and competence
- inadequate information at shift and personnel changes
- weaknesses in experience transfer and learning
- execution of work on electrical installations.
The PSA also said that several of these issues involved "weaknesses in management follow-up to ensure that activities are conducted in an acceptable manner."
Statoil has previously acknowledged the severity of the Gudrun leak. Following its own investigation in May 2015, it said that the leak was "serious with major incident potential."
That assessment is echoed in the results of the PSA's investigation, which said that in slightly different circumstances, the leak "could have resulted in a major accident with loss of life, substantial damage to material assets and consequences for the marine environment."
The leak at the facility, which was identified in February 2015, resulted in a total emission/discharge of around 4 m3 of condensate. Of that amount, more than 1 m3 was discharged into the sea.
The PSA says that the direct cause of the incident was a leak from a rupture in a 2 in. pipe in the bypass line directly downstream of the first-stage separator.
No injuries were recorded as a result of the incident.
"Statoil is ordered to ensure that management of health, safety and the environment in the operation of Gudrun embraces the activities required to identify, risk-assess and deal with signals from the process plant during operation and to take the necessary measures," the PSA said in its statement. "Furthermore, it is ordered to ensure that knowledge and necessary information from key specialist teams are conveyed in a systematic and appropriate manner to the operations department, and that such information is applied in every phase."
Statoil has been given a deadline of June 1 to comply with the order, which is legally binding.
Statoil had not issued a response to the investigation at the time of press.
Erica Mills