Norway Asks ENI to Prevent Future Disruptions at Arctic Field

Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) asked Italy's oil firm ENI on Monday to present plans on how to avoid power disruptions at its Goliat oil platform in the Barents Sea.

 

Production at Norway's only Arctic oil field was shut on Friday due to loss of power supply from shore, prompting partial evacuation. The power supply was restored several hours later, but oil production remains shut.

 

There was a similar shutdown in May after the field's startup in March, PSA said.

 

ENI said it would not restart production until its investigation is complete.

 

The PSA said it asked ENI to present the plan by Sept. 5 and called both ENI, which holds a 65 percent stake in the licence, and its partner Statoil (STO) to meet officials to discuss the planned measures.

 

"We will not restart production until we complete the investigation into the power interruption. It's difficult to speculate when, but we are talking about days," Andreas Wulff, ENI's spokesman told Reuters.

 

The field in the Barents Sea is estimated to contain about 180 million barrels of oil, and it was producing around 72,000 barrels of oil per day in June, the latest available data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate shows.


(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)