The Norwegian arm of Italian oil major Eni has been rapped over “serious” failings at the Goliat floating production and storage offloading vessel.
The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has given the firm notice of order following supervision of electrical safety and responsibility.
Production, which started in March 2016, has been shut in and will not be allowed to resume until the shortcomings are resolved, according to the PSA.
It follows an investigation which found samples in reports after ex-inspection of electric motors with associated emergency stop arrangement, showing high error rates related to the equipment’s ex integrity. This also included equipment in hazardous areas.
At the meeting of October 4, it was found that Eni had reviewed all inspection reports of the relevant equipment in the wake of the audit.
Eni states that the total error rate on the equipment after repair in connection with inspection was 38%.
It also emerged that 3.5% of these represented serious errors based on Eni’s own assessment.
The PSA considers these error rates to be “high”.
Eni informed the meeting that they had so far examined about 50% of the ex engines. It is therefore unclear what is the condition of uninspected ex engines.
The PSA said it consider the deviation as serious.
Eni Norway is now required to complete a systematic survey of potential ignition sources related to ex-exhaust electric motors.
On the basis of the survey, necessary technical, operational and organizational measures shall be taken to reduce the risk of ignition as far as possible for any mistake that constitutes a source of ignition.
The activities must be completed before the production of Goliat FPSO is resumed.
