Statoil Investigation Describes Heimdal Leak as "Serious"
Statoil has concluded that a gas leak on the Heimdal platform in May this year was a "serious gas leak". The description comes after an internal investigation into the matter by Statoil, which Statoil has submitted to the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway.
Despite the description of the leak as "serious", Statoil points out that there there was no threat to the platform’s main safety functions or integrity as a result of the leak. Additionally, the company was satisfied with both the emergency response and the automatic safety systems, with both working as intended, Statoil said.
The leak, which occurred on the 26th of May 2012, occurred because a valve became overloaded with gas, which then leaked into the surrounding area. During the four minutes the gas was leaking, Statoil estimates that 3,500 kilos of gas was emitted. The incident occurred during a routine operation at the site, Statoil says.
The company has not identified one single cause of the leak but says that a complex sequence of events triggered the four-minute leak. This chain of events included errors in the original design, insufficient planning and failure to communicate, Statoil's report found.
No one was injured in the incident.
The company says that it is continuing to work to maintain and improve conditions of its operations and says that the Heimdal incident is just a further reminder of that priority.
"Statoil is working systematically to avoid incidents and our HSE results show that we have improved in this area," Statoil’s head of operations North Sea west, Jannicke Nilsson, said. "The Heimdal incident is still a strong reminder of the need for continuous learning and improvement in our operations."
The company has implemented four changes since the incident to ensure that minimisation of the risk of the leak recurring. These measures include improving the technical design and updating of system drawings, Statoil says, as well as improving planning, risk assessment and operations.
"We believe that this improvement work has had a positive effect," Ms. Nillson said in a statement on Statoil's website today. "However, the Heimdal incident has revealed that we need to strengthen this work further. We will continue pursuing our effort within these improvement areas in addition to the measures identified after the Heimdal incident."