Statoil Shuts Snorre B Platform, Evacuates Some Personnel
Photo courtesy of Statoil
Norwegian energy firm Statoil shut oil production at its Snorre B platform in the North Sea and evacuated a quarter of its personnel after detecting a soil shift under a drilling template, the company said on Monday.
Production was first shut on Saturday then halted again on Monday when more problems were discovered during a restart attempt, the firm said.
"Production was shut again on Monday after detecting an oil leak, and as a precautionary measure the platform's manager has ordered to evacuate some of the people from the platform," a spokeswoman for the company told Reuters.
Its partners include state-owned Petoro with 30 percent, ExxonMobil with 17.4 percent, Idemitsu Petroleum with 9.6 percent, RWE with 8.6 percent and Core Energy with 1.1 percent.
Snorre field, which has two platforms, produced 88,000 barrels of oil per day in 2013.
Statoil said the Snorre A platform was operating normally.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis)
