$36m Safety Plan For Bhp

The Age

Thursday June 13, 1996

Barry FitzGerald

BHP needs to spend $36 million on its offshore oil and gas projects to bring them up to world's-best practice on safety.

The upgrade will take a year to implement and involves spending $22 million on the Griffin Venture and $14 million on the Jabiru Venture floating production, storage and offload facilities.

BHP Petroleum chief executive, Mr John O'Connor, said particular attention would be paid to the Griffin Venture's gas export system, including modifying the gas compressors and upgrading ancillary equipment.

He said the changes and modifications would minimise the need for crews to enter cargo and ballast tanks while overall operating performance would be lifted by upgrading the power generation equipment. The upgrade program will require a visit by the floating facilities to a dockyard, with the Jabiru Venture due for a major refit in September.

``We will be reviewing progress on these matters each month with appropriate regulators to ensure safe and timely completion, and we will not hesitate to shut down the vessels whenever such action is called for," Mr O'Connor said. Griffin production had been cut 20 per cent in March to ``ease the load on people and equipment" as part of the safety effort. The Griffin project is producing oil at a daily rate of about 65,000 barrels, while Jabiru produces about 12,000.

© 1996 The Age

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