Explosive natural gas is leaking from a North Sea platform less than 100 metres from a flare which workers left burning as they evacuated the rig, operators of the natural gas well said today.
Total Elgin dismissed the risk of a blast at the platform, 240 km (150 miles) east of the Scottish coast, and the British government said the flame had to remain burning to prevent excess gas pressure from building up.
But 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.
Total's share price has dropped about 7 per cent in the past two days, although 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.
A spokesman for Total UK said the flare was on a separate platform from the leak, albeit only a short distance away."The flare is still burning but is not posing a risk. The leak is on the wellhead platform and the flare is on the
Processing, Utilities and Quarters platform. There is a gap of 90 metres (300 feet) between the two," he said in the Scottish city of Aberdeen.
David Hainsworth, a health, safety and environment manager at Total, told the BBC the priority had been the safety of the 238 staff of the platform when it was evacuated on Sunday.Memories are still raw in the North Sea industry of the Piper Alpha platform fire 24 years ago, when 167 people were killed in the world's deadliest offshore oil disaster.Hainsworth said the flare was still alight, adding that "we don't believe it has been reduced in size".
He could not say how long it would take to extinguish the flame, and whether that would be "an hour, or 24 hours or two days" - or even longer.
The British government said the flame was still alight as part of the safety system triggered during the evacuation to burn off excess gas."At the moment wind is taking the gas cloud away from the flame and weather conditions are forecast to remain stable for the next few days," said a spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
"We hope that the pressure will be such that the flame will naturally go out by itself, but Total are not taking that for granted."
Industry consultant John Shanks said the stakes were high for the offshore industry. "The news this morning that the flare is still burning on the platform is thus unwelcome," said Shanks, who works at RiserTec, a specialist engineering consultancy based in Aberdeen.
"Under normal conditions, the deeper the leak, the more difficult remedial work will be. However, if gas continues to leak at a steady or increased rate over a sustained period of time, the platform could become an explosion waiting to happen."
A spokesman for Total in Paris said a solution to plugging the leak was still being evaluated and it was "a question of days". "We have not precisely identified the cause of the incident," he said.Total warned on Tuesday that it could take six months to halt the flow of gas in an accident that has thrown a spotlight on the safety record of energy production in the British sector of the North Sea.
Mr Hainsworth said then that some weeks ago Total engineers had decided to pump mud into redundant piping on a gas reservoir which had been plugged about a year ago. This appeared to result in the escape of gas from the outer casing of the well.
The Piper Alpha disaster led to a major review of offshore safety rules, underpinning the Britain's current regime. Industry body Oil and Gas UK said hydrocarbon leaks from offshore rigs have fallen 70 per cent over the past 15 years, though figures suggest they remain high compared with Norway.
The UK sector recorded 155 cases of hydrocarbon releases in 2010-2011, against only eight leaks in 2010 alone in the Norwegian sector."Obviously the UK has more rigs in our sector of the North Sea compared with Norway, but like for like we're still seeing many more incidents," said one energy union official who asked not to be identified.
"This is the type of thing we're seeing more and more, and as a union we're getting sick of it."
Six months ago Total showed Elgin, one of the newer North Sea platforms which is due to keep producing for another 25 years, to a group of journalists, including a Reuters reporter.On top of its triangular structure on huge yellow-painted ladder legs was a labyrinth of stacks of human quarters next to an enormous on-board gas treatment plant, powered by engines with exhaust pipes as wide as two cars.
The platform boasts two gymnasiums and a sea view cafeteria.
Credit ratings agency Fitch said current reports of the four-day leak suggest the unfolding incident was not as serious as the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon platform which resulted in oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.
"The Elgin leak is a surface gas leak rather than an underwater oil leak, making its potential for environmental damage far lower than in the Deepwater Horizon case," Fitch said in a statement.
Fitch said accidents like this were unpredictable and difficult to resolve but added it considered the potential was low for this leak to escalate to a crisis on the scale of Deepwater Horizon.The explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and ruptured BP's Macondo well, unleashing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Reuters