The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) served the improvement notice to BHP telling the company to improve its operations or risk serious fines and possibly further repercussions. 

 

NOPSEMA said on its website that the lack of oversight, governance and inspections "could have resulted in a loss of containment, or ignition risk, and subsequently, a major accident event involving injury or death." 

 

According to the notice, management and crew had not been conducting regular inspections of major accident event controls, and had no temporary equipment register, tracking sheet or equipment specification sheets on the facility. 

 

Furthermore, the offshore management and crew had no awareness of the protocols and procedures of assessing the equipment or using the recording sheets. 

 

This is not the first warning BHP has received from NOPSEMA regarding health and safety. The company was first given a notice to improve its procedures in managing service contractors and equipment in 2017, but the company failed to introduce new systems. 

 

NOPSEMA said BHP had "not taken all reasonable practicable steps" to ensure contractor equipment was safe and wasn't putting its employees at risk. 

 

BHP has been given 90 days to prevent or reduce the risks, including completing a management review of its audit systems and procedures. 

 

Energy News attempted to reach out to BHP for comment but was unable to obtain a response by deadline.