Total restarts production at Elgin/Franklin gas fields

PARIS, FRANCE: Total announced the restart of production on the Elgin/Franklin area on 9 March 2013, following the approval of the safety case by the UK Health and Safety Executive. Production resumes gradually and will soon reach close to 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day that is to say 50 per cent of the production potential from the fields. In order to recover by 2015 the production level which existed before the Elgin incident, a redevelopment project envisaging drilling of new infill wells on Elgin and Franklin is currently under study. In addition, the West Franklin Phase II development project remains ongoing with production start-up scheduled for 2014.

“Managing this industrial incident securely for our personnel and with limited impact on the environment was our priority. The causes of the incident are now known and all necessary measures have been taken to enable us to resume production and carry out future exploitation of the fields from the Elgin/Franklin area in the best safety conditions. Lessons learnt have been shared with the UK authorities and will also be shared with the wider industry. We now focus on continuing our development plans to bring back the full potential from these fields the soonest possible,” said Yves-Louis Darricarrere, President, Upstream, Total.

© WOC News