---

The new ABS Guide for Mobile Offshore Units Operating on Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) specifically addresses the technical requirements of the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA). The PSA has supervisory responsibility for safety, emergency preparedness and the working environment in petroleum-related activities in Norway. This responsibility was taken over by PSA from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) in 2004. ABS has long been authorized by the NPD to undertake designated activities as a recognized body.

Conformance with the criteria in the Guide, in addition to the relevant ABS Rules, will qualify the unit and either its drilling or production system for the issuance of the new N-Notation. Assignment of the N-Notation to a unit and industrial system will then contribute to the decision taken by the PSA for the authority’s issuance of the Acknowledgement of Compliance (AoC), which is mandatory for operation on the NCS. 

“This new Guide and Notation are expected to ease the way for our clients that are planning to assign units within their fleet to the Norwegian sector of the North Sea,” says Kenneth Richardson, ABS Vice President, Energy Development.

“Currently, 84 percent of all mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) and 56 percent of all floating production units that are under construction or on order are to be built to ABS class standards,” Richardson notes. “Many of the MODUs are on order to the account of Norwegian owners and it is highly likely that a proportion of these new units will be employed in the North Sea at some stage in the future. By coupling this new notation and guidance with the unmatched experience of ABS within the offshore sector, owners will have even greater operational flexibility in the future.”

In expectation of additional classification activity in the northern reaches of the North Sea and southern portion of the Arctic Ocean, ABS also recently issued a Guide for Vessels Operating in Low Temperature Environments. “Projects such as Snovhit have already pushed well into these very low temperature environments,” says John J. Gallagher, Director, Technology & Business Development, Offshore, ABS Europe.

“These highly capital intensive projects are nearly always joint ventures between two or more oil majors, many of whom are traditional ABS clients,” Gallagher points out. “ABS has a long history of technical and survey experience of harsh environment operations, including in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska and off Sakhalin Island. As the North Sea operators push this northern frontier, and as Russia moves forward with the Shtokman and other Arctic projects, we have been gearing up to provide the technical support that will be needed for these technically challenging developments.”

Download a copy of the Guide for Mobile Offshore Units Operating on Norwegian Continental Shelf, N-Notation.