The audit took place between 4 and 7 February 2019 and was focused on Seadrill’s management of emergency preparedness, logistics, maintenance and the working environment on West Hercules.

Background

West Hercules is a semi-submersible drilling facility, owned by Seadrill and operated by North Atlantic Norway. The facility received Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC) from the PSA in December 2012.

The facility has operated in the British sector and was cold stacked until October 2018. The facility is now on lease to Equinor. When we performed our audit, West Hercules was in the process of drilling well 7132/2-1 (“Gjøkåsen”).

Objective

The objective of the audit was to verify that Seadrill's management of emergency preparedness, logistics, maintenance and the working environment on board West Hercules complied with the regulations.

The audit was also a follow-up of the PSA’s 2018 audit of West Phoenix, to monitor how Seadrill has followed up systemic non-conformities on its other facilities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

Result

The audit identified extensive breaches of the regulations.

We also observed that Seadrill had not rectified a number of regulatory violations that we pointed out previously, in connection with our processing of AoC applications and audits of other Seadrill facilities.

In total, 12 regulatory non-conformities were identified. These concerned:

  • Non-conformity handling
  • The maintenance management system
  • Maintenance of lifting equipment – enterprise of competence
  • The management system for cranes and lifting
  • Responsibilities and authorities – the operationally responsible entity for lifting operations
  • Technical conditions
  • Non-conforming follow-up of mapping and overarching assessments of health risk
  • The line managers’ roles and responsibilities for working environment risk and employee participation
  • Management of emergency preparedness training on board
  • Fire stations
  • Man-over-board preparedness
  • Contents of cabinets marked with emergency equipment

What happens now?

Based on our observations during the audit, we have given Seadrill the following order:

Pursuant to the Framework Regulations, section 69 concerning administrative decisions, with reference to the Management Regulations, section 6 concerning the management of health, safety and the environment, the Management Regulations, section 21 concerning follow-up, the Activities Regulations, chapter IX concerning maintenance, the Framework Regulations, section 7 first para. concerning responsibility pursuant to these regulations, with reference to the Framework Regulations, section 25 concerning application for Acknowledgement of Compliance for certain offshore mobile facilities and appurtenant guidelines, we order Seadrill to implement the following measures:

1. Review the company’s maintenance management system and associated work processes and implement measures so that they works as intended. The work shall include an analysis of why important deficiencies in the maintenance management system were not identified and followed up in connection with the process of implementing a new system (Maximo) on West Hercules.

2. Review and assess the effect of implemented measures that were undertaken and instigated on all facilities with AoCs under Seadrill's responsibility in Norway in the aftermath of the order issued after the audit of West Phoenix from 9 to 11 January 2018. The work shall include an analysis of why deficiencies in the management system and associated work processes have not been identified and corrected on West Hercules.

3. Undertake measures to ensure that lessons learned and initiatives ensuing from items 1 and 2 of the order include all facilities with AoCs under Seadrill's responsibility in Norway.

A time-delimited schedule for how this work is to be performed and followed up shall be submitted to the PSA by 26 April 2019. The schedule shall describe how this work is to be performed and followed up and when the order will have been complied with.

We have also asked Seadrill for a report on how the other non-conformities (that are not part of the basis of this notification of order) will be addressed. In addition, we have asked the company for their assessment of the improvement points we observed.

The deadline for this is set at 26 April 2019.