OIL AND gas company Total is to redevelop the Elgin field in the North Sea which was shut down following a major gas leak last year.
The French firm is to drill a series of new infill wells at Elgin and neighbouring Franklin in a bid to recover production to the level before the catastrophic safety alert.
Operations resumed at Elgin/Franklin at the end of last week after Total received the green light from the Health and Safety Executive.
The company said it now intended to build production back up to around 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day the level it was prior to the forced shutdown and said it hoped to eventually boost the recovery rate higher with total potential.
It also confirmed the West Franklin Phase II development project remains ongoing with production start-up scheduled for 2014.
Production at Elgin was brought to an halt on March 25 last year, when a gas leak caused by a combination of several unprecedented events occurred on the G4 well.
An investigation found the leak was caused by a type of stress corrosion which was unique to G4.
However, a number of other wells have been permanently abandoned as a precaution and others are continuing to be evaluated.
Total stated in August last year the overall environmental impact of the gas leak incident at Elgin was “minimal”, with 3,096 tons of natural gas and 3,076 tons of condensate being lost because of the leak.
The company said most of the material which leaked evaporated into the atmosphere while the sheen representing some 407 tons of condensate dispersed into the sea.
Yves-Louis Darricarrere, president of Total Upstream, said lessons had been learned from the incident one of the most serious in the recent history of the North Sea and shared with the UK authorities.
He also said information garnered from the investigation would be disseminated among the wider oil and gas industry.
However, the company said the focus now was on developing plans to bring the fields back up to full operational capacity and exploiting further reserves estimated at 500 million barrels of oil equivalent in the area.
“Managing this industrial incident securely for our personnel and with limited impact on the environment was our priority,” Mr Darricarrere said yesterday.
“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.” business@thecourier.co.uk