No offshore platform workers were injured in a fire at BPs Valhall oil platform in the North Sea last week. The fire broke out on the platform which is located just off the Norwegian coast.
According to news reports, the source of the fire was a compressor on the production platform. The fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon, and all persons were evacuated safely to an adjacent platform. No injuries were reported, and all crew members have been accounted for. The company is looking at this very gravely, and is considering this a serious safety incident.
The Valhall oil field is located in the North Sea in the Norwegian Continental Shelf, in about 230 feet of water. There were a total of 638 workers on the field. Since the fire, production has been closed down, and there is no information about when it’ll pick up again.
The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority is likely to begin an investigation into the incident. BP is also likely to conduct its own internal investigation into the matter. Repairs to the damage to the platform are going on. Any decision about resuming production will be taken once the repairs are complete. The Valhall oil field produced an average of 60,000 barrels of oil a day before this incident.
A similar incident occurred back in 2009. In that incident, a pipeline leaked leading to production being shut down. There’s currently no indication to maritime attorneys that these two incidents are linked, but investigators are likely to probe the 2009 incident too.
