The audit was conducted from 30 August to 13 September 2023. 

The order was issued on 13 November 2023.

Objective

The objective of the audit was to verify that the company’s management of the working environment and operations in the drilling areas on COSLPromoter complied with the regulatory requirements. In addition, two previous non-conformities were followed up.

Result

The audit identified a number of non-conformities within the working environment that individually and collectively could be attributed to inadequate management of the working environment.

In total, we identified 16 non-conformities, concerning:

  • non-conformity handling
  • psychosocial working environment
  • management of musculoskeletal disorders
  • design of the shale shaker area
  • noise
  • noise and hand-arm vibration from handheld tools
  • ventilation and fume extraction
  • personal protective equipment
  • carcinogenic or mutagenic chemicals and lead
  • storage and handling of H2S scrubbers
  • joint, local working environment committee (FS-AMU)
  • the safety service
  • well control expertise
  • adherence to procedures
  • training and drills
  • maintenance

We also identified three improvement points, concerning:

  • follow-up of other participants
  • lighting
  • documentary basis of competence concerning the facility’s barriers

Order

The audit identified serious breaches of the regulations and we have now issued COSL Drilling Europe with the following order:

Pursuant to the Framework Regulations, section 69, concerning administrative decisions, with reference to the Management Regulations, section 6, concerning the management of health, safety and the environment, and section 22, concerning the handling of non-conformities, and the Activities Regulations, section 21, concerning competence, and section 22, concerning safety and working environment training pursuant to the Working Environment Act, we require COSL to:

  1. Review the company’s management system for the working environment, which is intended to safeguard competence, surveys, risk assessments, use of measures, rectification of faults and deficiencies, and improvements. The work shall include an analysis of the underlying causes of identified deficiencies related to the management of the working environment within COSL.
  2. Implement necessary improvement measures systemically within COSL based on the above review and analysis.
  3. Ensure that results and learning (ensuing from points 1 and 2) also include other facilities with AoCs under COSL’s area of responsibility in Norway.

The deadline for complying with the order is 1 June 2024. We are to be notified when the order has been carried out.

A time-delimited schedule for complying with the order shall be sent to the PSA by 15 December 2023. The schedule shall describe how this work is to be performed and followed up.