| Poor maintenance has been a contributing cause to major accidents, both in the petroleum industry and other industrial activities (Report to the Storting no. 12, 2005-2006), and close to 50% of all work related accidents on the Norwegian continental shelf happen in conjunction with maintenance. Based on this, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway has implemented a project called, “Maintenance as a Means for Preventing Major Accidents”.
The goal of the project, which was established in 2006, is to describe the status and challenges related to maintenance control in the petroleum industry. During the Overflate 2007 conference, the Project Manager for the project, Semsudin Leto from the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA), presented the results from the report.  Photo: Semsudin Leto, Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) The main results show that there were five recurring deviations from regulated requirements (based on inspections from 2006 and 2007). These deviations are the result of poor: - Classification - Documentation - Use of classifications - Inspections of unfinished maintenance - Competence The report points out that the system for implementing verifications is not in accordance with regulated requirements. The results also indicate that only a third of the companies have conducted internal audits of their own maintenance controls over the past year and a half. This means that while many criticisable conditions have been uncovered, maintenance controls have not been followed up with special audits, and many of these conditions continue to be unsatisfactory. Further, a number of deviations from regulated requirements were uncovered in all the companies that were inspected. These deviations mean that the industry does not have a good enough overview of: - What needs to be maintained - How great and how resource-demanding this maintenance need is - The risk to personnel conducting maintenance work This makes it difficult to form a realistic impression of risk as a basis for decision-making in maintenance control. As a whole, the results from the project, “Maintenance as a Means for Preventing Major Accidents”, show that the need for improvement is so comprehensive that the industry must do something exceptional to meet the requirements and challenges it faces. You can read the report here (only in Norwegian): Vedlikehold som virkemiddel for å forebygge storulykker (Source: Presentation by Semsudin Leto, from the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA), at the Overflate 2007 conference) Article by: Kyrre Øygarden, Mintra as |