The Snorre A 2004 Blowout and Its Impact on Drilling and Well Operations Today

The Snorre A blowout on well P-31 A on November 28, 2004, was a well control incident that sent percussions into our national and corporate HSE management systems. These percussions still resonate in our everyday work as a part of a comprehensive set of rules which encompass national regulations, industry standards, corporate functional, technical, or work requirements, as well as an integrated governing work process management system. Some of these rules have been embraced with a positive attitude and are now a natural part of our day-to-day work. They prepare for technical, organizational, and operational barriers that secure the safety of all personnel, shield the value of our investments and assets, and protect the environment. Some of these rules, however, may be perceived as dead weight and barriers in the sense of hindrances that may hamper an efficient workday and fill our agenda with many formal demands and obligations. This paper pinpoints and reviews "the change in rules" that the Snorre incident caused regarding planning, execution, and follow-up of drilling and well (D+W) operations on government, industry, and corporate level. The major failures that the investigations of the incident revealed have been handled diligently in our corporate system. In this paper, we track how management involvement, management of change, and "compliance and leadership" work in practice. The day-to-day tasks to prepare for safe D+W operations and to secure the integrity of wells in operations are explained. As an illustrative exercise, we are setting up a hypothetical plan for Snorre P-31 A as the D+W operations would have been planned today. This is done by outlining well barrier schematics, risk assessments, and the processes to handle deviations from technical or work requirements. Our objective is to explain that risk management in the planning and the execution of D+W operations and for wells in operations is coherent. To avoid the recurrence of incidents such as Snorre P-31 A, a systematic and rigorous approach is in use that makes it likely to capture inadequate well integrity conditions. This approach links high-end government regulations to sharp-end detailed operational risk management in our HSE management system.