Odfjell Drilling has applied for an AoC for the Deepsea Aberdeen mobile drilling facility.

In connection with an AoC application, the PSA conducts audits within selected specialist domains.

From 4 to 11 December 2020 we carried out an AoC audit of emergency preparedness, the helideck and drinking water for Deepsea Aberdeen. During the audit, the facility was in the process of being prepared for operation on the NCS.

The audit was carried out with the assistance of the Norwegian Maritime Directorate for the domains of emergency preparedness and drinking water, and from the Civil Aviation Authority Norway for the helideck.

Background

The background to the audit is Odfjell’s application for an AoC for Deepsea Aberdeen. In the AoC application, Odfjell has chosen the opportunity provided for in Section 3 of the Framework Regulations, concerning the application of maritime regulations in the offshore petroleum activities. This means that technical requirements in the Norwegian Maritime Directorate’s regulations for mobile facilities apply within maritime areas, including technical requirements relating to emergency preparedness, drinking water systems and helidecks.

Objective

The objective of the audit was to verify the technical condition, organisation, preparations for operation and relevant documents in the management system in order to monitor that requirements in the petroleum regulations were being met. This audit formed part of our case processing of the AoC application.

Result

The audit identified one non-conformity and three improvement points.

The non-conformity concerned maintenance of the drinking water system, while the improvement points concerned marking and signage of evacuation routes, lighting and the systematic familiarisation programme.

What happens next?

We have asked Odfjell Drilling to report on how the non-conformity will be addressed. We have also asked for an assessment of the improvement points observed.

Before we issue an AoC, the company must have corrected all known safety-critical non-conformities, and the facility must have been issued with maritime certificates from the appropriate flag state.