Norwegian Gas Plant Leak Could Have Caused Fatalities
A gas leak at Norway's Kaarstoe gas processing plant in January could have ignited and caused fatalities, the country's oil safety watchdog said on Thursday.
About 22 metric tonnes of gas leaked during nine and half hours on Jan. 7 at Norway's second-largest gas processing plant due to a fracture caused by fatigue in a link to a manometer at the plant, situated on the country's west coast.
While no-one was injured in the incident and the material damage was minor, the leaked gas could have ignited, the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway said.
"If personnel had been in the proximity of the leak in the event of ignition, this could have caused serious personal injuries and potential fatalities," it said in a statement.
Operator Gassco was not immediately available for comment.
Statoil, which provides technical service at Kaarstoe, said its own investigation also showed that this was a serious incident.
Kaarstoe has a production capacity of 88 million cubic metres per day.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis)
