07 December 2013, News Wires – Production has been reduced at two North Sea platforms as explorers continue to down-man installations in the path of a severe storm in the region.
Waves of up to ten metres are expected to be generated by the storm before it subsides late on Thursday or early Friday.
The storm has already claimed the life of a truck driver in Scotland, where some 100,000 homes were without power on Thursday afternoon, and at one point on Thursday Scotland’s entire rail network was closed, BBC reports said.
US oil major ConocoPhillips said it had curtailed production at the Ekofisk field over the weather conditions.
“With weather conditions expected to peak on Thursday afternoon, we have relocated a number of personnel onshore and to the Ekofisk complex. Production will be partly impacted until we can safely resume full operations,” a spokesperson for ConocoPhillips told Reuters, without providing outage figures.
Denmark’s Maersk Oil has reduced oil output and stopped gas exports from its Tyra field in the Danish North Sea.
Statoil said it has moved 33 non-essential personnel off its Troll B platform but production was not affected.
As Upstream first reported on Wednesday, Talisman Sinopec Energy UK flew all workers off its Buchan Alpha facility in the UK North Sea amid concerns the pentagonal-design platform might not withstand the storm.
BP said on Wednesday it had taken 170 workers off the Valhall platform, while 108 staff remain on board and production was unaffected.
– Upstream
