A fire broke out during the early morning in the ventilation system on the Petrojarl Knarr floating production and storage unit on the Knarr field. The unit concerned supplied air to the engine room beneath the living quarters.
This event had been preceded by a power cut which shut down the fans in the HVAC unit. However, steam continued to be supplied to its heat exchanger. That caused high temperatures to develop in the unit, and air filter cassettes ignited eight hours later.
Technical investigations by the vessel’s owner have been unable to identify the direct cause of the filter ignition with any certainty. Had the fire damper valves failed to operate, smoke could have spread into the living quarters.
The incident led only to material damage. The fire was extinguished after about 30 minutes.
A number of nonconformities and improvement items have been identified by the PSA’s investigation. These nonconformities cover both technical conditions and areas related to emergency response.
The PSA has asked Teekay Petrojarl Production AS to respond to the nonconformities identified in this report, including any follow-up actions.
Knarr
The Knarr field lies in the Norwegian North Sea, about 50 kilometres north-east of Snorre, and has been developed with Petrojarl Knarr and two subsea templates for production and injection tied back to a seabed manifold.
Petrojarl Knarr was installed on the field in the fourth quarter of 2014, and came on stream on 18 March 2015.
Teekay Petrojarl Production AS (TKPJ) is the owner and operator of Petrojarl Knarr, while BG Norge Limited (BG) is operator for the field.