The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) reported Jan. 26 that it has lifted the notice to suspend operations for the SeaRose floating production, storage, and offloading vessel and associated facilities.
The Jan. 17 notice by C-NLOPB resulted from an incident in March 2017 where Husky Energy departed from its agreed ice management plan by not disconnecting the vessel and sailing away when an iceberg entered its quarter-mile exclusion zone (OGJ Online, Jan. 17, 2018).
“We could have and should have responded differently according to the preexisting plan, and have learned from this incident,” said Husky Chief Executive Officer Rob Peabody.
In conjunction with the C-NLOPB, a series of actions have been taken to ensure this type of incident cannot happen again, including:
• A comprehensive review of Husky’s ice management and emergency response plans has been conducted, and further improvements have been made and implemented. The emergency response plan details that the SeaRose FPSO must be disconnected if a threatening iceberg enters the quarter nautical mile ice-exclusion area with no exceptions.
• Husky completed an emergency response drill, observed by the C-NLOPB, industry partners, and the offshore facilities certifying authority.
• Management has met with employees onshore and offshore to communicate the changes being made and to reinforce that procedures must be followed with no exceptions.
• Organizational changes include the appointment of Trevor Pritchard as senior vice-president, Atlantic region. He was previously the company’s head of safety. Pritchard will report directly to Chief Operating Officer Rob Symonds.
The March 2017 incident did not result in any product release or environmental impact, Husky said.
The controlled resumption of operations is expected to take 3 days. The SeaRose FPSO was producing 27,000 b/d of oil (Husky working interest, before royalties) prior to the suspension of operations.
