Total has restarted production at its huge Elgin gas field in the North Sea, almost a year after a major gas leak which cost the French business millions of euros.
Production is resuming gradually and should soon reach close to 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to Total.
Last March, a well at the Elgin platform leaked gas for more than seven weeks, at the time costing Total around £1.6m a day in relief operations and lost income.
Elgin and the nearby Franklin field, which started production in 2001, accounted for nearly 5pc of Britain's output and the shutdown registered on Britain's ailing economy as falling oil and gas production knocked 0.2 percentage points off gross domestic product last year.
Total said a "thorough investigation" had revealed that the leak was caused by a type of corrosion which was unique to the well. It added that the conclusions of its investigation had been taken into account to ensure that current and future operations are carried out with the "utmost safety".
The field, located 240 km off the eastern coast of Scotland, should return to its pre-accident production level in 2015.
Production increases will be achieved by the development of two big projects: phase two of West Franklin and a revamp of Elgin, expected to be finalised this summer.
Commenting on the restart of the fields, Yves-Louis Darricarrère, president of Total Upstream, said: "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."
"Lessons learnt have been shared with the UK authorities and will also be shared with the wider industry," he added. "We now focus on continuing our development plans to bring back the full potential from these fields the soonest possible.”
telegraph.co.uk
Production is resuming gradually and should soon reach close to 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to Total.
Last March, a well at the Elgin platform leaked gas for more than seven weeks, at the time costing Total around £1.6m a day in relief operations and lost income.
Elgin and the nearby Franklin field, which started production in 2001, accounted for nearly 5pc of Britain's output and the shutdown registered on Britain's ailing economy as falling oil and gas production knocked 0.2 percentage points off gross domestic product last year.
Total said a "thorough investigation" had revealed that the leak was caused by a type of corrosion which was unique to the well. It added that the conclusions of its investigation had been taken into account to ensure that current and future operations are carried out with the "utmost safety".
The field, located 240 km off the eastern coast of Scotland, should return to its pre-accident production level in 2015.
Production increases will be achieved by the development of two big projects: phase two of West Franklin and a revamp of Elgin, expected to be finalised this summer.
Commenting on the restart of the fields, Yves-Louis Darricarrère, president of Total Upstream, said: "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."
"Lessons learnt have been shared with the UK authorities and will also be shared with the wider industry," he added. "We now focus on continuing our development plans to bring back the full potential from these fields the soonest possible.”
telegraph.co.uk
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