Gassco’s 2011 prize for health, safety and the environment has been awarded to Statoil’s organisation at the Kårstø plant for adopting new technology which can replace welding.

The presentation was made on Tuesday evening during the dinner at Gassco’s HSE and quality (HSE&Q) summit in Haugesund’s Rica Maritim Hotel.

This award aims to encourage positive, innovative thinking in the HSE area, and a long-term approach with attention focused on measures for preventing major accidents.

"New and exciting technology is readily available on the market, but getting it approved and implemented is often very demanding," says Alfred Skår Hansen, HSE&Q director at Gassco.

"Statoil has every reason to be proud of its success here. With time, 90 per cent of all hot work with a naked flame could be eliminated at Kårstø. That would dramatically reduce the number of ignition sources."

Lokring is a technology which joins equipment and piping without hot work, and 3 000 operations using this solution have already been performed on utility systems at Kårstø.

The next step is to use the method on hydrocarbon-bearing equipment at the gas processing plant.

"Implementing Lokring piping joints is a very important step in developing safe and secure operation at Kårstø," Mr Hansen observes.

"Statoil’s organisation there has shown both initiative and the ability to pick up new technological developments. Lokring not only helps to reduce major accident risk but also has a big potential for financial savings. It’s by no means always the case that these two considerations coincide."

A total of seven candidates were nominated for the HSE prize by technical service providers and Gassco. The others were:

ConocoPhillips PSI-RIBO – personal safety involvement

Statoil Kårstø – RS2010 turnaround

Statoil Kollsnes – complete re-Hazop of the processing plant

Gassco Germany – revised system for contractor management

Gassco Easington – LRF pre-operations project

Gassco Belgium/France – security project at the Zeepipe/Dunkerque terminals

Tags: Gassco, Statoil