This audit was conducted in 2021.

Background

In recent years, the PSA has undertaken a number of audits concerning follow-up of alarm systems on drilling facilities, at onshore plants and on production facilities.

This work has found that these alarm systems fail to meet the company's requirements. Furthermore, other audits have identified high alarm rates and many standing alarms.

These findings suggest that deficiencies may be present in both the follow-up of the systems and the understanding of the impact which high alarm rates and many standing alarms may have on working conditions for control room operators.

The PSA audited the control rooms of most Norwegian offshore facilities and onshore plants in 2021.

Objective

The objective of the audit was to verify that the operator company follows up the alarm system and working conditions for control room operators in compliance with the regulations and the company's internal requirements.

Result

The PSA’s audit at Mongstad identified one nonconformity related to:

  • inadequate follow-up of the alarm system.

Order

The audit identified serious breaches of the regulations, and the following order has been issued to Equinor.

Pursuant to section 69 of the framework regulations on administrative decisions, see sections 21 and 33a of the technical and operational regulations on the human-machine interface and information presentation, and on the control and monitoring system respectively, Equinor Mongstad is ordered to

  • ensure that each operator suite used to monitor, control and manage the production processes has an acceptable alarm rate and does not increase the danger of erroneous actions which could be of significance for safety
  • implement measures to reduce the alarm rate from at least one of the relevant instruments which makes a significant contribution to the alarm rate.

See section 5.1.1 of the report on inadequate follow-up of the alarm system.

The deadline for compliance with the order is 1 June 2022. We must be notified when the order has been complied with.