PSA: "Serious Breach" of Fire Safety at Snohvit
Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA), the regulatory body for oil and gas industry in Norway, has said that there has been a "serious breach" of fire safety regulations at Statoil's Snohvit.
The PSA came to the conclusion following an audit of the application and use of risk analyses, and fire load and fire resistance in the process facility at Hammerfest LNG. The audit was carried out between June 12th - 15th this year.
The most serious issue identified was in performance of the facility's depressurisation system. However, the PSA also identified four other issues: the leak testing of emergency shutdown valves, the internal spread risk in the event of fire in the process barge, designing against jet fire and active fire fighting.
The result is the latest issue to impact upon the Snohvit field and the Hammerfest LNG facility. Last month, the company was forced to shut down the Hammerfest processing plant due to water ingression. Work to remedy the issues took most of the month with production only restarting at the end of last month/beginning of this month.
Statoil, the operator of the Snohvit field and Hammerfest LNG plant, has until the 13th of September to address and rectify the issues highlighted by the PSA.