Objective
Wintershall Norge is the operator of the Maria field, at Haltenbanken in the Norwegian Sea, around 200 kilometres from the mainland.
Maria is the first field that Wintershall is developing as the operator. The field lies in around 300 metres of water and has been developed using subsea solutions tied back to various nearby facilities. Maria is scheduled to come on stream in 2018.
From 5 to 17 February 2017, we carried out an audit of Wintershall's management of the fabrication of pipelines for the field. Subsea 7 has a contract with Wintershall for the engineering, purchasing, fabrication and installation of the pipelines. The audit also covered Subsea 7's fulfilment of its responsibility for complying with regulatory requirements and those of the operator.
Result
No regulatory non-conformities were detected during this audit.
Improvement points were identified in connection with the work description for the operator's on-site representatives for the pipeline fabrication, and with the organisation chart for the welding control function.
We have asked Wintershall to report on how these improvement points will be assessed by 27 March 2017.