At the same time, Statoil is being criticized by its own employees for neglecting safety on older installations in the North Sea.
- Having tested our oil spill preparedness plans ahead of the imminent drilling operations in the Barents Sea, we can now confirm that they perform as planned, says Knut Harald Nygård, Statoil’s new exploration manager for the Barents Sea, according to the company’s web site.
The three operators Statoil, Eni and Lundin, together with NOFO (Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies) and local task forces jointly planned and carried out an extensive oil spill response drill on Sørøya in West Finnmark recently.
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- We are keen to test out our emergency response plans before embarking on a new exploration campaign with Eni and Lundin. It’s important to ensure that the cooperation between the companies, NOFO and local task forces works really well before we commence drilling. We are pleased to have achieved our goals for the drill, says Nygård.
The three operator companies will shortly commence four exploration wells in the Barents Sea, the first of which will be drilled by Eni. Statoil will then drill two wells and Lundin one, the first exploration wells drilled in the Barents Sea since 2008. The mobile rig Polar Pioneer will be used on all of them.
At the same time as Statoil is stating that the company is ready for drilling in harsh Arctic conditions, the management is being criticized by employees for bad management and weak production efficiency on the company’s older installations in the North Sea.
According to union leader Bjørn Asle Teige many of the workers are afraid to go to work on the offshore installations because of lack of maintenance and bad security equipment, newspaper Dagbladet reports.
- Lately I have received reports that large groups of employees have lost faith in Helge Lund as the company’s CEO. It is our opinion that he has made several bad choices and put safety at the offshore production installations at risk, says Teige.
Teige claims that the company has lost over NOK 10 billion (€1.2 billion) annually on sales revenues from oil and gas because of low efficiency, which again is a result of cutbacks in manpower, reorganizations and unforeseen episodes because of lacking maintenance. As example he mentions that platforms have lost electricity 11 times so far this year, compared to five times in 2009 and two times in 2008.
