* Gales forecast for North Sea area this afternoon -Met
Office
* Total to move drilling rigs from two nearby fields
* Total to fly experts to platform in next few days
By Karolin Schaps and Muriel Boselli
LONDON/PARIS, April 2 (Reuters) – Total faced
rough seas and heavy winds on Monday as the oil and gas company
prepared to send men and machines to battle a leak at its Elgin
platform in the North Sea that has spewed gas into the air for
over a week.
The French company, which is spending $1 million per day on
efforts to plug the leak, plans to move drilling rigs from two
nearby fields, fly staff to the platform if it is deemed safe
and send two underwater inspection vehicles to check where best
to drill relief wells, Total said on Monday.
“Both (inspection) vessels are currently awaiting optimum
sea conditions before they can be deployed,” Total said, raising
concerns that relief operations will be delayed as Met Office
forecasts showed even stronger wind levels for Monday afternoon.
The company is expected to fly its own staff to the platform
within the next few days, industry sources told Reuters.
If a first visit to the platform is successful, Total plans
to fly out more engineers by the end of the week to begin
injecting mud into the well to stop the gas leak, the industry
sources said.
Workers are expected to wear personal breathing apparatuses
and gas detectors to protect them against dangers on the site.
Total was due to meet experts from Britain’s Health and
Safety Executive (HSE) on Monday to discuss the dangers
involved. An executive said, meanwhile, Total was not aware of
any legal proceeding from UK authorities in relation to the
leak.
On March 25 all 238 workers were evacuated from the platform
240 kilometers off the Scottish coast, and a two-mile exclusion
zone was set up around the site, while fire-fighting ships
remained on standby in case of an explosion.
The union representing staff at the Elgin platform opposes
plans to fly a team of crisis engineers to the platform, saying
it is too dangerous given the amount of gas that has escaped.
“We think this is a highly dangerous tactic. Even a dropped
hammer could ignite the gas. The whole thing would have to
executed perfectly,” said a union official, who asked not to be
identified.
RELIEF WELLS
Total also plans to drill two relief wells to prevent gas
from leaking at the top of the platform.
It said it would stop drilling operations a few kilometres
away at its Fettercairn and West Franklin fields so that it can
use the rigs to drill two relief wells at the leaking platform.
“To maintain the widest possible range of options, other
drilling rigs are also being considered,” the company said,
without specifying from where it could source the additional
rigs.
Total has hired a team of international experts to advise it
on how to plug the leak, including U.S. firefighting and
engineering firm Wild Well Control, which helped tackle BP’s
Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 and Kuwait’s raging oil fires
in 1991.
The company estimated its net operational loss of income
from the leak at $1.5 million per day but said it was unable to
give an overall cost estimate of the impact.
EARLY SIGNS
Total had detected the first signs of trouble at Elgin one
month before the leak started as pressure rose in a well, which
had been capped a year earlier.
The operator told workers up to a few hours before the
evacuation that a leak was impossible, rebuffing concerns raised
by rig workers weeks before the incident, a union official said
last week.
The company said on Monday it had suspended production at
the Elgin well in January 2011 due to pressure problems.
“My experience in the North Sea is that if you scratch
beneath the surface, things get quite scary quite quickly,” said
an oil industry professional with knowledge of North Sea safety
systems and procedures.
“There is a worrying backlog of maintenance on
safety-critical equipment, including release valves, pipelines
and sub-sea fail-safe devices,” he said.
A marine expert onboard a Greenpeace ship, which has arrived
near the exclusion zone, said he could see evidence of some
sinvormental pollution.
“Our boat is in an area of extensive oil pollution, and we
see yellowish chemicals swimming in the oil spill,” Christian
Bussau told Reuters by satellite phone from the Koningin Juliana
ship some 5 km from the Elgin platform.
Greenpeace activists said they had collected their first
samples of water and air, which will be analysed in Germany.
A different marine pollution specialist at the University of
Liverpool said danger posed by the gas leak on sea birds and
marine plants and animals was small due to the low quantity of
hydrocarbons contained within the condensates that have formed a
slick on the water.
“If things continue as they are, I do not think that the
marine pollution risks are high. The condensate slick is
reported to be slight and diminishing,” said Dr. Martin Preston.
