Audit critical of safety procedures at Norne Field offshore mid-Norway
In 2021 the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority, which became the Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) in January 2024, issued orders to Equinor to address safety issues identified at the Snorre B platform and Norne FPSO. The authority was seeking evidence that barrier functions were in place to detect, manage, and limit the consequences of maritime incidents at the field. One area of focus was barrier functions to handle the risk of safety incidents not caused by vessel collisions. Read more.
Equinor must take action to comply with an order from the Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil).
This follows an audit of the company’s technical safety, electrical systems, automation and risk management at the Norne Field facilities in the Norwegian Sea. Havtil says it has identified serious violations of Norwegian regulations.
Initially in 2020, the authority conducted an audit of Equinor’s risk and barrier management at Norne, followed in 2022 by an audit of the company’s management of major accident risk and technical barriers at the field.
This second exercise identified several weaknesses in the barrier functions against major accidents. A follow-up audit earlier this year found that action needed to improve significant and serious barrier weaknesses was still taking longer than planned.
The breaches of regulatory provisions that came to light were a failure to perform corrective maintenance; deficient planning and prioritization; defective follow-up of the alarm systems; passive fire protection; deficient labeling of facilities, systems and equipment.
Havtil has now asked Equinor to assess restrictions on the activity level of the Norne facility, as a result of the identified non-conformities and the status of previous non-conformities.
The deadline for compliance is Oct. 1. Feedback must also include an overview of corrective measures with an associated schedule.