Hundreds of defects left unresolved on Bluewater vessel

A North Sea production vessel was found to have a backlog of nearly 500 defect reports – of which more than half related to “safety critical” elements.

Fleet operator Bluewater is said to have failed to manage the maintenance of equipment aboard its FPSO Haewene Brim.

During a regular inspection, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) watchdog discovered 478 “open” mechanical corrosion and defect reports. A total of 262 of the uncompleted reports related to defects or corrosion found on what the HSE called “safety critical elements".

The production vessel has been working at the Pierce oil and gas field, in the UK sector, on behalf of Shell since 1999.

UK watchdog the Health and Safety Executive has reprimanded Netherlands headquartered Bluewater for being unable to demonstrate effective planning, organisations and review of its defect reporting and temporary repair systems.

In addition, there were 13 overdue safety critical repairs identified on November 1, 2016.

Inspectors said the number of open reports had “steadily" increased from 281 over the course of a year until the inspection last November. A total of 163 defect reports were overdue, 86 of them on “safety critical elements".

Bluewater was also slapped on the wrist over two hydrocarbon releases from a floating production vessel in April and September last year.

HSE said the company had not made suitable arrangements for the effective organisation, control, monitoring and review of its management of change systems.

The improvement notice stated: “An investigation of two hydrocarbon release incidents on April 26, 2016 and September 3, 2016 uncovered deficiencies in management of change of process conditions and process plant equipment as an underlying cause.”

The firm has been given until the end of August to comply with the improvement notices.

Haewene Brim FPSO vessel: riddled with defects