The activity was a planned activity in the PSA's audit plan for 2010, and comprised the technical disciplines of working environment, materials handling and technical integrity.
The audit emphasised the following areas:
- Passive fire protection
- Fire-fighting systems
- Verification of the project's routines for following up working environment conditions in various areas on the installation.
- Follow-up of matters relating to ergonomics, floor plan/layout, facilitation of safe movement and job execution, access to equipment units for operation and maintenance, qualitative assessment of lighting and visibility factors, and facilitation to minimize hazardous chemical exposure.
Background
The audit is related to the future application for consent to use of the installation on the Norwegian shelf. Furthermore, the audit is conducted as part of our objective of setting the terms and ensuring that the players in the petroleum activities maintain high standards as regards health, environment and safety, and through this also contribute to creating the largest possible values for the society. The PSA shall also contribute towards reducing the risk level in the petroleum activities by following up that the players facilitate technical and operational integrity.
Goal
The goal was to carry out supervision to ensure that in the construction of Skarv FPSO, BP complies with the regulatory requirements within the fields included in this audit activity. The basis for the verifications was the company's own governing documents and studies/analyses.
Result
It is our overall impression that BP has generally established suitable processes to safeguard matters relating to the working environment in the various worksites onboard the Skarv facility. Through the project's verification activities, we identified a substantial number of nonconformities in relation to regulatory working environment requirements. Many nonconformities have been corrected along the way and the project was able to demonstrate good management and status as regards rectifying the identified nonconformities. It is our impression that the working environment observations that have been identified, registered and made objects for further follow-up, were based on sound professional evaluations. The project's identified working environment observations/nonconformities reflected the expected level as regards compliance with the regulatory requirements for working environment conditions.
As regards facilitation for safe and efficient materials handling on the facility, however, we did note that several conditions had not been identified satisfactorily through the project's inspection and verification activity. In particular, this applies to the choice of appropriate lifting equipment for use on lifting beams, and certification and marking of pad eyes and lifting beams.
These are matters that the project needs to follow more closely in its continued verification work.
With regard to the aspects of technical safety, this audit focussed on passive fire protection and systems for fire-fighting. The report raises four improvement items.
