Audits Respond to Personnel Shortages and Poor Monitoring of Oil Rig Risk – E24

The oil platform is located 185 kilometers west of Stavanger. This spring, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority reviewed various aspects of the management of Equinor’s operations in Grane and was not satisfied with the result.

Particular emphasis was placed on how Equinor manages the working environment on the platform in the North Sea. The goal is to ensure that employees are not at risk of health damage and sick leave.

The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority was not impressed with the results. The risk management of the work environment in the Grane platform is deficient, is the main conclusion.

In total, the audit detects five violations of the regulations. One of them is that the risk mapping of the work environment is deficient and does not provide a comprehensive and qualified picture of the situation.

Thus, Equinor receives further criticism, shortly after the company itself announced that the facility in Melkøya, outside Hammerfest, will be closed for a year after the fire in late September. Here, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority has announced an investigation.

Cancer risk

At Grane, the audit concludes that, for example, the exposure assessment to the carcinogenic gas benzene has not been performed well enough. Recent studies have shown that benzene can cause cancer at lower exposures than previously thought, but at Grane, Equinor doesn’t know enough how vulnerable workers are.

The audit notes that Equinor has also failed to monitor work environment measures that the company itself had classified as “high risk”. These were postponed or canceled without any professional justification.

The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority also believes that Equinor has not secured enough staff or experience on the oil rig in the North Sea, nor has it assessed the risk of this well enough.

Staffing on Equinor platforms has been a hot topic at the company for several years, and especially after the implementation of the 2016-19 Operational Staffing project. Lately, the discussion has flared up again at the company, where the unions are once again reverting to the fact that the actual core staffing on the platforms is too low.

The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority report states that during the audit they were explained that staffing was low because employees of Equinor’s internal temp agency, the Offshore Career Center, could be used when needed. But, the necessary resources were not available here, it was explained to the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority from different levels at Equinor. Using temps or additional staff is difficult because they don’t know the platforms. And when a replacement was not brought in until an employee had been on sick leave for more than two trips (each trip is two weeks, with four weeks on the ground in between, journal.anm.), A lot of overtime was spent. Many employees spent more than 200 hours last year.

– Staffing too low

The audit notes that Equinor was unable to indicate that the downsizing did not have negative consequences for health, the environment and safety. Staff were asked to extend their stay on the platform. Some were tired and said no, while others said yes because it was well paid. However, Equinor had not assessed the risk well enough.

The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority has sent a notification of an order to Equinor. Here, the company needs to ensure that risk is systematically mapped, and measures are also tracked. In this case, the quality must also be verified by competent personnel. The company had the opportunity to correct factual errors in the report prior to its publication.

Equinor must now respond to the audit on how deviations will be handled by December 21.