The audit was conducted on 3 June 2020.
Background
The background to the audit is Report to the Storting 12 (2017–2018) Health, safety and environment in the petroleum industry, which prescribes intensified supervision of shipping activity on the NCS within the parameters of the Petroleum Act.
The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway has had a study undertaken to map the risk from vessel operations in the petroleum activities.
Read more: Risks associated with vessel operations in the petroleum activities (07 January 2019)
The loading of shuttle tankers is a shipping activity identified as having the potential for a major accident, making it a relevant topic of supervision.
Shell is the operator of the Knarr field and has signed an agreement with Altera Infrastructure (formerly Teekay) which is responsible for the operation of and owns the Petrojarl Knarr FPSO facility.
Oil loading from the Petrojarl Knarr FPSO is carried out as a tandem operation with the tanker connected with hawsers and loading hoses. Loading operations take place at about six-week intervals.
Objective
To verify that the activity is performed in accordance with relevant requirements in the HSE regulations.
Result
No breaches of the regulations were identified, but we observed certain conditions that we categorised as improvement points. These were:
- Governing documents
- Decision-making criteria for loading operations
- Overall risk assessments
- Safe shutdown of loading operations
What happens now?
We have asked Shell for their assessment of the improvement points observed. The deadline for this is set at 14 August 2020.