Problems with the UK’s North Sea transmission network left the Huntington field on reduced output once again, it has emerged.
The field, which was shut in for safety reasons last month, was left working at a limited capacity because of issues with the BP-operated Central Area Transmission System.
North Sea operator Noreco, which is a partner in the Huntington field, said output was reduced until the issues with transmission were fixed.
“Huntington will continue to produce at reduced capacity until the issues are solved,” the company said.
“The CATS operator expects that the capacity restrictions will be lifted shortly.”
A spokeswoman for BP confirmed the terminal had been shut down for 24 hours earlier this month, after wet gas entered the system, with a phased return for operators begining on September 10.
“As a result of increasing pipeline pressure, CATS requested all shippers (ETAP, J-block, Huntington and Armada) to shut down on the morning of Monday 9th September,” she said.
“CATS restarted train 1 later that day and re-established export to the grid at 2100hrs.”
Huntington had stepped up production earlier this month, after being shut in following a health and safety warning over fears about venting cargo tanks on the Voyageur Spirit FPSO in low winds.
Output had been expected to reach around 27,000 barrels a day, but since being restored at the start of the month had reached 30,000boed.
Noreco has also seen production from the Oselvar field reduced due to technical issues at BP’s Ula platform, which are expected to be resolved soon, while the company said there was no firm date production to begin from the Nini, Nini East and Cecilie fields due to problems with the Siri platform.
