A/S Norske Shell – planning of the implementation of permanent plugging of the Knarr field

Audit of Norske Shell’s planning of the implementation of permanent plugging of the Knarr (Gaupe) field using Deepsea Yantai.

The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) has carried out an audit of A/S Norske Shell's planning of the implementation of permanent plugging of the Knarr field using Deepsea Yantai.

The audit was conducted on 17 and 18 April 2024.

Objective
The objective of the audit was to ensure that A/S Norske Shell complies with regulatory requirements and its own internal requirements with regard to permanent plugging and abandonment of the temporarily plugged and abandoned wells on the Knarr field.

Safeguarding of well integrity during reentry of the temporarily abandoned wells was included in our activity. The wells on the Knarr field have been temporarily abandoned since July 2023 without continuous monitoring of well integrity.

Result
The audit identified two non-conformities concerning:
lack of follow-up and further development of the management system in Norway
failure to record non-conformities.
In addition, we identified two improvement points concerning inadequate decision-making criteria when reentering temporarily abandoned wells and inadequate follow-up of internal requirements for regulatory competence.

What happens now?
We have asked A/S Norske Shell to report by 5 July 2024 on how the non-conformities and improvement points will be addressed.