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Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Norway’s Statoil and its partners in Algeria on the In Amenas plant are ready to resume ordinary operations at the plant. The resumption of normal operations comes over 18 months after the hostage crisis at the plant in the Algerian desert that left scores dead and cost the country a significant amount of funds due to its closure.
According to Statoil, its corporate executive committee has decided that ordinary rotation is to be resumed at the plant as all defined security measures have been implemented. This follows the approval in June of the temporary manning of the plant to finalize the implementation of the outstanding security requirements. The goal was to make sure the last of the security measures were put into place and to prepare for a resumption of ordinary operations.
“The decision to resume ordinary operations also at In Amenas is the result of a thorough and stepwise process of identifying necessary security measures, implementing them and validating that they are in place and operational,”’ said Lars Christian Bacher, executive VP for Development & Production International (DPI) in a statement posted on the company’s website.
Since the In Amenas attack, Statoil has worked systematically with its partners in Algeria with the aim of resuming ordinary operations in the country. The security improvements at In Amenas are also based on recommendations of the investigation conducted after the attack. In parallel with this work, the company has carried out a continuous and comprehensive improvement effort to enhance the general security work in Statoil. The goal of this program is to achieve considerable improvements both with regard to awareness, organization, systems and use of resources.
Through the security improvement effort at the Algerian plants, the JV has introduced physical security measures at all operating plants. The security work, both in Statoil and in JV, has furthermore been reorganized, and the dialogue with Algerian authorities on securing the plants has been improved. Algerian authorities have also initiated and introduced security measures beyond those implemented by the JV.
“’We will now, in cooperation with our partners, continue our systematic work to maintain the high level of the security measures, to ensure that we have a good understanding of the security threats and adjust our security measures as required,” continues Bacher.
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