The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has criticised Diamond Offshore Drilling for failing “to provide comprehensible instructions” ahead of the collapse of a piece of kit while drilling a BP project West of Shetland.
The body visited Diamond’s Ocean GreatWhite drilling rig, where the vessel’s lower marine riser package “unintentionally separated” during a storm of 1 February this year.
During the inspection on 12 February, an HSE representative reviewed Diamond’s documents outlining the controlling procedure for assembling a riser package, dated 4 December 2023.
HSE’s improvement notice on the company noted several omissions in the documents, including “no specific roles and responsibilities of persons within the company who were to perform the various actions required for the assembly of the riser package”.
The improvement notice also said that the procedure “did not contain any verification or assurance checks to confirm that the requirements of the procedure had been complied with, including such critical operations as locking the tension ring to the outer barrel of the slip joint.
“In addition, there were no records maintained to demonstrate that the work had been carried out to the requirements of the procedure.”
HSE said that Diamond Offshore Drilling “failed to provide comprehensible instructions to ensure that the riser package is assembled correctly, the necessary levels of verification and assurance checks have been identified, records to be maintained and those involved have clearly stated roles and responsibilities”.
The incident took place while Ocean GreatWhite was working on BP’s Schiehallion field in the West of Shetland.
Diamond said that no drilling was taking place when the incident occurred and that no oil or gas escaped.
BP had contracted Diamond Offshore Drilling to perform a five-well campaign across Schiehallion and the Ben Lawers project as part of an $80m contract.
Energy Voice previously obtained footage of the marine riser falling into the ocean.
The vessel had to return to Kishorn after the incident, and is expected to remain off rate until late May or early June.
BP declined to comment when contacted, while a Diamond spokesperson told Energy Voice: “Diamond Offshore is committed to maintaining a culture of safety and expects to comply with the notice within the previously forecast repair period and in advance of the 21st July 2024 notice deadline.”
Recommended for you
