Background

Conducted from 17-20 October 2017, the audit was directed at emergency preparedness and maintenance management on Rowan Stavanger.

This facility is a jack-up unit of the KFELS N class, delivered in 2011 by Keppel Fels Shipyard in Singapore and operated by Rowan. The PSA issued Rowan Stavanger with an acknowledgement of compliance (AoC) in 2012.

Objective

After being laid up for a lengthy period, Rowan Stavanger is now back in operation. The goal of the PSA’s audit was to verify that the regulatory requirements related to management of emergency preparedness and maintenance were being followed up.

Result

In addition, the PSA followed up findings from earlier supervisory activities directed at Rowan with regard to the management of emergency preparedness and maintenance and to the company’s new system for maintenance management.

The audit identified several nonconformities and improvement points related both to emergency preparedness and maintenance management.

The nonconformity related to maintenance management concerned faults and deficiencies in the maintenance management system.

This represents a serious breach of the regulations, and Rowan has thereby been given the following order:

Pursuant to section 69 of the framework regulations on administrative decisions, see section  21 of the management regulations on follow-up, and sections 21, 22 and 45-49 of the activities regulations on competence, training and maintenance respectively, Rowan Drilling Norway AS is ordered to implement the following measures.

  • Review the maintenance system, including competence with and training in its use, to ensure that it complies with the regulatory requirements. This work must include an analysis of why important deficiencies in the maintenance system have not been identified and followed up.
     
  • Prepare a binding and scheduled plan to ensure that necessary training and maintenance required by the regulations are planned and implemented for all facilities within Rowan Drilling Norge AS’s area of responsibility in Norway. The plan must describe how this work will be executed and followed up. This plan must be submitted to the PSA by 27 November 2017 together with the response to the audit report.

Before facilities not currently in operation on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) are taken into use on the NCS, Rowan must ensure that they can be operated prudently pursuant to section 20 of the activities regulations on start-up and operation of facilities. See section 5.2 of the report.

What happens next?

The deadline for complying with the order is set to 11 December 2017. We must be informed when the order has been complied with.