NEO Next’s Piper Bravo platform suspends production following oil spill and valve failure

Bob Fleumer

OPERATORS of the Piper Bravo platform in the UK North Sea have suspended production following a crude oil and diesel spill earlier this month, TCE can reveal.

A source close to the investigation told TCE that an emergency shutdown took place on 6 January following the hydrocarbon spills. Operator NEO Next restarted production the next day but without completing functional checks on the oil export pipeline valve. Eight days later the company discovered the valve had failed, prompting a voluntary shutdown. NEO Next alerted the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) about the valve failure on 19 January.

The valve has been closed but production remains suspended as NEO Next remains concerned it would not operate automatically if required.

A NEO Next spokesperson said: “We made the decision to shut down production immediately after awareness of the issue. This de-risked the asset and ensured it remained in a safe condition until thorough investigation, assurance and any required mitigation or controls were enacted.

“We have proactively informed and engaged with the Health and Safety Executive throughout.”

Export pipeline valves are critical safety devices, preventing oil backing up onto the platform in the event of pressure fluctuations. A valve failure contributed to the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, when hydrocarbons backflowed onto the platform, fuelling the fire that killed 167 people. Piper Bravo was installed in 1992 as a replacement for Piper Alpha.

An HSE spokesperson said they had been informed of an “event on Piper Bravo on 6 January, in response to which production was suspended. This incident is subject to further enquiries and HSE has no comment to make at this time.”

NEO Next issues

This is not the first process control concern at Piper Bravo. The latest shutdown comes less than 12 months after NEO Next resolved an HSE improvement notice regarding “well integrity failures” at the site. The notice was served in February 2022, with HSE inspectors noting the problems had been known since 2005.

Separately, NEO Next was fined earlier this month by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) for attempting to decommission a well in the Leverett field without approval – a legal requirement to ensure well abandonment plans are safe and effective. NSTA said the attempt was due to NEO Next “misunderstanding” the relevant requirements for decommissioning, which “raises questions about the company’s processes”. The abandonment of the well was not successful and had to be redone.