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In a report released Wednesday morning, Bellona Equinor and the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority on the fire at the Melkøya LNG plant earlier this fall.
On September 28 this year, the fire broke out at the liquefied gas (LNG) plant in Melkøya, outside Hammerfest. The fire has been described as one of the most serious incidents in Norwegian oil history.
«Equinor’s management has operated the fuel-scale plant at the expense of the integrity of the plant and the safety of people.“, Writes Bellona in the report to which Dagbladet has had access.
The report also encourages the management of the Melkøya facility to assess its own position as a result of the fire.
Hauge: – Very serious
Dagbladet has been in contact with Equinor, which has not read the Bellona report. The company has no comment on the report until after it was filed at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning.
– This is a very serious matter. We have conducted this investigation to help the police. The report shows how Equinor’s systematic savings have led to very serious episodes, Bellona leader Frederic Hauge tells Dagbladet.
– Are they just Bellona accusations?
– This is a preliminary investigation report, it is correct. Everyone can enter the report for themselves and examine the case documents. All sources we have used are willing to speak to the police, continues Hauge.
– Serious system failure
Through her investigation, Bellona claims to have uncovered a number of underlying causes of the fire, including serious system failure, incompetence, and poor oversight by state authorities.
- Reduced maintenance. Bellona states in the report that cost savings at Equinor led to less equipment maintenance at the Melkøya plant.
- Poor understanding of risk at Equinor due to the fact that the challenges with the error that caused the fire must have persisted over time, but have not been resolved.
- Very little relevant experience in installing LNG, according to Bellona.
- The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority discovered was not followed up. In recent years, the audit revealed several dozen faults at the Melkøya facility, but in an inspection report published on November 16, many faults are known to have not been rectified.
- The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority is also reprimanded for not following up on deficiencies in key parts of fire preparedness that were discovered during the inspection.
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Coincidences
The Bellona report concludes that it is coincidences such as wind direction and season that the fire at the Melkøya facility cost no lives and led to the evacuation of the town of Hammerfest.
Much of Hammerfest was without power for a period as a result of the September 28 fire.
Yesterday, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority confirmed that during inspections in 2017, challenges were encountered with the ability of qualified personnel to perform maintenance on electrical installations. In an audit this fall, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority found similar challenges for the technical support department within the electrical and instrument disciplines.
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In the process of correcting errors
Equinor said in a statement that the company is in the process of improving conditions.
– We take the comments in the P-tils inspection report very seriously, says Equinor’s director of ground facilities, Grete B. Haaland.
– We will carefully review comments and respond to requests and close discrepancies. We have initiated or already implemented measures for several of the deviations that P-til states in the report, and we will work to close what remains with quality within the deadlines agreed with P-til, he says.
