Norwegian Institute For Nature Research News

The Rogaland county public prosecutor notified Statoil on 18 December that it has been fined $4.26m following the oil leak from the Statfjord A loading buoy on 12 December 2007. “We have noted the public prosecutor’s decision,” said Thorstein Hole, vice president for the operations west cluster in Statoil. “We’ve made changes to the way we plan and implement modifications, strengthened the maintenance programme and adopted more secure routines for offshore loading,” Hole said. He notes that more than 20,000 offshore loading operations have been conducted on the NCS over the past 30 years, including 7,000 on Statfjord. “The measures we’ve adopted have enhanced loading robustness and security even further.

The Statfjord A platform organization is preparing to restart production after an oil leak Saturday (May 24). Production on Snorre A and Vigdis was resumed Sunday, May 25. "After the situation was normalized Saturday the employees on Statfjord A have done a great job tidying and cleaning the area in the platform shaft where the leak occurred. This work must be completed before production is resumed," says Lars Petter Lundahl, head of Statfjord production. When the oil leak occurred between a storage cell and one of the platform shafts Saturday…