Buzzard field hit by North Sea pipeline outage

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The 200,000 barrel a day Buzzard oil field in the North Sea is among dozens that must stop pumping as a key pipeline powers down due to a strike planned this weekend at a Scottish refinery, Nexen Inc., the field’s operator, said on Friday.

“As they go through those procedures, then we’ll get notice to do similar things. It just kind of piggybacks off that,” Nexen spokesman Mike Harris said. “Then we wait until they tell us we can bring it back up again.”


BP Plc, which runs the Forties pipeline that supplies about half of Britain’s crude, started shutdown procedures on Friday. The Grangemouth refinery, about 34 km (21 miles) northwest of Edinburgh and the target of the labor dispute, supplies electricity to the pipeline.

Nexen is one of numerous Canadian energy companies with operations in the North Sea. Others with production affected by shutdown of the 700,000 bpd pipeline include Canadian Natural Resources Ltd and Oilexco Inc.

The Forties pipeline system ships crude from about 70 oil fields. The strike at the Ineos-operated refinery, due to start Sunday, has raised fears of fuel shortages in Scotland and northern England.

Reuters