Gas Leak in North Sea Unstopped

April 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

From Mother Jones:

Recent developments at the Elgin Well head platform—the Well-from-Hell—in the North Sea, where a massive gas leak has been underway since 25 March:

  • The operator of the platform, supermajor oil giant Total SA, says it’s losing $2.5 million a day on the leak—$1 million daily on efforts to stanch the leak and $1.5 million in daily revenue,reports AFP.
  •  Greenpeace members aboard the German research vessel Koenigin Juliana  sailed to the edge of the exclusion zone within three nautical miles of the platform and reported seeing oil on the water in the form of a multicolored sheen, plus a faint smell of gas in the air. Total claims what they saw was a gas condensate sheen and that it poses no threat to marine life, reports The Maritime Executive.
  • The flare on the platform that had been burning when the rig was evacuated extinguished itself Saturday.
  • Total has outlined plans to stop the gas leak by 1) boarding the platform to control the well, while also 2) drilling a relief well and 3) drilling a backup relief well. The operations are being planned as follows, reports the Oil & Gas Journal:

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North Sea Gas Leak

March 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

From The Oil Drum:

A crisis situation has developed at a gas and condensate production platform in the Elgin field in the North Sea. Gas is leaking out of a well near a offshore platform at a rate of approximately 2 kilograms per second (12 MMCF/day if gas), and a large sheen (assumed to be condensate) has been observed on the water. All workers on Total’s Elgin PUQ (production-utilities-quarters) Platform plus those on the Rowan Viking drilling rig, which had been working next to it, have been evacuated.

And more recently:

…one energy industry consultant said Elgin could become “an explosion waiting to happen” if the oil major did not rapidly stop the leak which is above the water at the wellhead. However, some analysts said the leak did not appear to be as serious as the oil leak that caused BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, the world’s worst marine oil spill

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