Fatal Shipyard Accident Delays Norwegian Oil Field Project

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The Norwegian arm of Total S.A. (NYSE:TOT) (Paris, France) has announced that production from its Martin Linge oil and gas field in the North Sea will be delayed until 2019, following a fatal accident at the South Korean shipyard building the platform.

At the start of May, six people died and more than 20 were injured when a crane working on the $1.8 billion platform collapsed at a shipyard owned by Samsung Heavy Industries (Seoul, South Korea). Work on the project was suspended until June 1 to investigate the accident.

"We are deeply saddened by the accident that occurred at the yard on May 1," said Arnaud Breuillac, president of exploration & production at Total E&P Norge AS. "Our thoughts are first and foremost with the families and colleagues of the victims who lost their lives or suffered injuries. Total has dispatched its experts to join the ongoing investigation to identify the fundamental causes of the accident and implement the necessary preventive measures to avoid any reoccurrence of such accidents. All works at the yard were suspended for several days in order to give absolute priority to the investigation, provide psychological support to the workers and review lessons learned before restarting activities."

The company has concluded that the shipping of the Martin Linge modules from the South Korean yard to Norway will be delayed by a year.

"The installation of the modules and lifting operations, which can only be carried out during summertime, given weather conditions in the Norwegian North Sea, had initially been planned for summer 2017 but have now been postponed to summer 2018," the company stated. "Therefore, given the hook-up and commissioning operations, production start-up has been delayed to first-half 2019."

The Martin Linge oil and gas field is located in the North Sea, approximately 180 kilometres west of Bergen, Norway. It is being developed by Total E&P Norge (51% operator), Petoro (30%) and Statoil (19%). It will have an estimated production rate of 80,000 barrels per day.

Earlier this week, Industrial Info reported that production has started at the Gina Krog field in the North Sea, operated by Statoil (58.7%), alongside partners Total E&P Norge AS (15%), KUFPEC Norway AS (15%), PGNiG Upstream Norway AS (8%) and Aker BP ASA (3.3%). For additional information, see July 10, 2017, article - Gina Krog Oil and Gas Field Starts Production in North Sea.

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