Conoco, Statoil Shut North Sea Oil Fields on Storms

(Bloomberg) — ConocoPhillips started shutting production at three North Sea oil and gas fields and two platforms as storms brought high winds and waves to the region. StatoilHydro ASA shut two fields.

ConocoPhillips began closing the Eldfisk Alpha, Eldfisk Bravo and Embla fields and the Ekofisk Alpha and Ekofisk Bravo platforms at 8:30 a.m. local time today, ConocoPhillips spokesman Ingvar Solberg said in a telephone interview. The shut-in is expected to last 24 hours, Solberg said.


StatoilHydro, Norway’s biggest oil producer, stopped oil and gas production at the Huldra and Kristin fields yesterday evening, StatoilHydro spokesman Vegar Stokset said in a telephone interview today.

Total production from the Ekofisk field is estimated at 236,000 barrels a day. ConocoPhillips’s Solberg was unable to confirm the total production likely to be shut in. Total oil production from the Eldfisk fields in 2007 is estimated at 46,000 barrels a day and from Embla it is 3,000 barrels a day, according to the Web site of Norway’s petroleum directorate.

Bloomberg