The importance of safety on oil fields has been highlighted following an oil spill at the Tordis field in the North Sea earlier this year.

A report into the incident by the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has found that lessons learned from the spill should be communicated to the industry to ensure that storage in geological formations remains safe in future.

The PSA notes that StatoilHydro, the operator of the site, is taking a number of measures to ensure that similar incidents do not happen in the future.

And to ensure that this work is carried out properly, the PSA will liaise with StatoilHydro to verify that the necessary steps have been taken in improving sustainable development.

StatoilHydro has already carried out its own investigation into the spill at Tordis and identified a number of issues relating to planning and implementation that need to be addressed.

Oil that is produced at Tordis is pumped to the Gullfaks platform some 10 km away, where it is processed, stored and exported.

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