Offshore staff
PARIS –Total (NYSE:TOT; Paris:FP FP) has restarted production on Elgin/Franklin following approval of the safety case by the UK Health and Safety Executive.
Production is expected to reach nearly 70,000 boe/d soon, or about half the potential production from the area.
To recover to the production volume prior to the incident, Total says new infield wells on Elgin and Franklin are under study. Also, the West Franklin Phase II development project is ongoing, with production start-up scheduled for 2014.
Production was stopped in March 2012 when a gas leak was detected on the G4 well which had been shut-in several months before.
“Managing this industrial incident securely for our personnel and with limited impact on the environment was our priority. The causes of the incident are now known and all necessarymeasures have been taken to enable us to resume production and carry out future exploitation of the fields from the Elgin/Franklin area in the best safety conditions. Lessons learnt have been shared with the UK authorities and will also be shared with the wider industry. We now focus on continuing our development plans to bring back the full potential from these fields the soonest possible,” said Yves-Louis Darricarrère, president of Total Upstream.
3/11/2013
