Maintenance At Shell North Sea Oil Rig To Resume After Accident

Reuters

LONDON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Maintenance at Royal Dutch Shell's Brent Alpha platform in the North Sea will resume after the completion of an operation to move a container that fell into the sea on Sunday evening, Shell said.

Shell had to evacuate non-essential staff from the oil rig on Monday and depressurised Brent Alpha and Brent Bravo as a precaution following the incident, which involved the mechanical failure of a crane. Around 30 employees were left on the platform to support the recovery operation.

Shell said the container had been placed in a "safe area" on the sea bed shortly before 0800 hours on Tuesday morning.

"The operation to move the container to the sea bed, at a depth of 140 metres, was carried out by personnel on board the Normand Subsea Dive Support Vessel, which arrived on scene at approximately 0100 hours on 30 September," a spokesperson for Shell said in an emailed statement.

She added that the container would be safely recovered in due course.

Both Brent Alpha and Brent Bravo were already shut down due to the ongoing maintenance so oil output has not been affected.

Shell added that production from the FLAGS pipeline, which starts at Brent Alpha and carries gas from a number of nearby fields to the St Fergus terminal, is being returned to normal.

(Reporting by Claire Milhench; editing by Jason Neely)



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