ONSL safety hitErnst&Young highlights work priority after notice from HSE
Watchdog hands ONSL safety hit
By Rob Watts
THE administrators running Oilexco North Sea (ONSL) have said safety remains their number-one priority after an improvement notice was served against one of the company's facilities by the UK's safety watchdog.
The notice was issued by the Health&Safety Executive (HSE) in mid-December—before OSNL's insolvency earlier this year—for failing to properly maintain the flexible dynamic pipeline risers on the Balmoral floating, production vessel.
Administrators from Ernst&Young took over responsibility for safety when they started running the company.
"Health and safety remains the number-one priority and will not be compromised in anyway," a spokeswoman for Ernst&Young said.
"The administrators have discussed with the HSE their requirements relating to the improvementnotice, measures have been put in place to ensure compliance of these requirements in the time frame provided, health and safety remains a number one priority."
The notice, which only became public recently following the end of an appeals period, said: "An inspection of the integrity management aspects of these risers, identified that Oilexco do not have a suitable integrity and condition monitoring programme in place in line with published industry good practice.
"They are therefore failing to maintain the pipeline risers as required to ensure that they are maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair."
The HSE set a date of 31 July to comply with the notice.
Union official Jake Molloy of the RMT said he will be contacting the HSE to make sure the workforce is not affected by any possible increase in the number of insolvencies amid the economic downturn.
He added: "Given the seriousness of this notice, I assume and expect the HSE will do all that is necessary to make sure its requirements are met by the set date."
Production at Balmoral started in 1986. Average oil production for 2007 was about 1700 barrels per day, according to Oilexco.
ONSL filed for administration in January with $1.7 billion in debt and contract payments outstanding.
Friday, 06 March, 2009, 00:01 GMT | last updated: Friday, 06 March, 2009, 05:07 GMT
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