Loss of Hydrocarbon Containment from a Valve Sealant Injection Fitting

Cause & Consequence

• Uncontrolled release of a flammable gas or liquid

Incident Location

Fixed Installation

Incident Activity

Production operations

Specific Incident Equipment

Ball valve sealant injection fitting

Lessons Identified

The investigation produced a list of 9 solutions to implement. Highlights of these solutions are as follows;

perform proactive analysis, maintenance and change out of the sealant injector arrangements installed on BG Groups Assets in line with our revised valve maintenance strategy; BG Group best practice improvements; procedural adherence improvements; valve healthcare contract management improvements.

Incident Recommendations

• Perform proactive analysis, maintenance and change out of the sealant injector arrangements installed on our Assets in line with our revised valve maintenance strategy.
• Improve awareness of thread connection guideline.
• Improve the mechanism to implement guidelines offshore.
• Perform failure analysis on component(s).
• Clarify expectations in the global valve contract around procedures and certification
• Complete the visual inspection of the remaining sealant injectors and explore other inspection techniques to ascertain if it is possible to detect failure of the inner check valve.
• Change design of sealant injector to industry best practice (implement a company global “Best Practice”).
• Investigation information to be shared with platform safety reps
• Step Change Safety Alert to be raised.