Audit NSOAF – Statoil and Transocean – Organisational and human factors in handling well control

Background
The audit is part of a joint activity between all authorities in the North Sea Offshore Authorities Forum (NSOAF).

As a part of the work programme in NSOAF following the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico in May 2010, a decision was made to implement a series of audits in five countries (Norway, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany) focusing on organisational and human factors in connection with well control.

Objective
The objective of the audit activity was for the companies to demonstrate vis-à-vis the PSA that a functional management system and associated work processes that contributed to safeguarding of well control had been established.

Result
Nonconformities were identified in connection with:

• Compliance assessment between Statoil’s and Transocean’s governing documents for handling well control
• Manual valves in drilling fluid systems

Furthermore, improvement items were identified in relation to:

• Performance requirements for volume control in connection with the drilling operation
• Responsibility for communicating assessments and performance requirements to a third party
• Experience transfer
• Systems for identification, assessment and management of risk
• Presenting information from Geoservice’s screens

Audit report (In Norwegian)

Journal 2012/862