The Guardian: BP warned over safety breaches in North Sea

EXTRACT: News of BP’s safety breaches follows repeated warnings to Shell, a rival North Sea operator, about the poor state of its oil platforms. Critics fear that some of the long-established oil infrastructure in the North Sea is being neglected because it is coming to the end of its commercial life.

THE ARTICLE

Terry Macalister
Tuesday May 8, 2007

BP is facing fresh questions about its safety record after being given a series of deadlines by the Health and Safety Executive to address problems on North Sea installations that are potentially putting workers at risk.

Following a root and branch review by the company of procedures after an explosion at its Texas City refinery killed 15 people and injured 150 two years ago, the HSE has told BP it is in breach of North Sea safety laws and may face closure of some of its facilities

The HSE, which enforces safety rules in Britain, has served BP with 14 “improvement notices” over the last year – seven on one production installation alone – demanding that the oil company undertake repairs and changes to ensure the facilities comply with the law.

The problems were described by offshore unions as “very, very serious” and present new difficulties for Tony Hayward who was overall head of production and responsible for the North Sea business before taking over last week as BP’s chief executive following the sudden exit of John Browne over lies he told in court.

Seven of the improvement notices apply to the Schiehallion field, west of Shetland, with six being issued in December and one on March 30. They are of particular concern because the bulk were served barely 18 months after a fire on board the floating production system forced non-essential staff to be evacuated.

News of BP’s safety breaches follows repeated warnings to Shell, a rival North Sea operator, about the poor state of its oil platforms. Critics fear that some of the long-established oil infrastructure in the North Sea is being neglected because it is coming to the end of its commercial life.

But Mr Hayward told the City in February that BP might have to reduce oil production in the North Sea to focus on safety. “We have further increased our focus on safety and operational integrity, and will in some cases deliberately slow the pace of our activity in order to improve safety and efficiency,” he said.

The latest safety notice to be served on BP’s Schiehallion platform was “because of the extent of backlogs in preventative and breakdown maintenance of plant, structures and fabric of the installation”.

The HSE notice adds: “It doesn’t appear as though BP is operating the installation in a way that would ensure safety risks have been controlled as low as is reasonably practicable, which is what the law requires.”

BP also received an improvement notice on February 5 with regard to the Magnus offshore field, little over 12 months after the company was criticised for allowing a single man working at night to discharge oil from 100-tonne rail cars.

Some of the notices on Schiehallion refer to the “parlous condition of the equipment” while another points to “sea chest” safety valves operating only manually, which is “incompatible with recognised good practice”. One notice says certain pipework “leaks so much sea water that the main deck is awash with it”.

The oil company defended its safety record, saying it would not be fair to compare the problems found at Texas City with the issues raised regarding Schiehallion and elsewhere.

“We did receive six improvement notices following a routine inspection by the HSE last year and there was a seventh last month. But four of them have been closed out and are awaiting final acceptance from the HSE, and work is ongoing to address the remainder,” a spokeswoman at BP’s Aberdeen office said.

“We are not complacent and we implement improvements where necessary. We have a good track record in safe operations in the North Sea. BP is very much a responsible operator with 30 years of safe operations behind it.”

But Jake Molloy, general secretary of the Offshore Oil Industry Liaison Committee, described the safety notices as “pretty damning” and said it was very rare for oil companies to be served with so many demands to upgrade safety at one particular installation over such a short time.

He expressed admiration for the way BP had accepted full responsibility for Texas City and had set about improving its safety systems but said the North Sea problems could not be underestimated.

“Some of these notices are very, very serious. The one that applies to sea chest valves is one of these. These valves control the amount of sea water coming on to the platform and in the event of a catastrophic failure you could have flooding and the capsize of the platform, as you had with P36 off Brazil. You would want to be able to automatically close them down, not just manually as was the position on Schiehallion.”

All 14 notices served on BP over the last 12 months relate to the “upstream” side of the business either in the North Sea or facilities related to operations there.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2074563,00.html

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