An operation to stem a gas leak at a North Sea platform has been successful.
Gas had been leaking from Total’s Elgin platform, located 150 miles off the coats of Aberdeen, since March.
However the French oil giant began pumping heavy mud into the leaking well on May 15 and the leak was effectively stopped 12 hours later.
And after five days of monitoring, Total has confirmed that the leak has completely stopped.
Yves-Louis Darricarrère, Total’s exploration and production president, said: “While we will obviously take on board any lessons to be learned, I want to congratulate all the teams, including our partners that have been mobilised with the only focus to stop the leak.
“Safely evacuating everyone from the platform and adjacent drilling rig, preventing any serious environmental impact and recovering control of the G4 well is a highly commendable effort from the teams involved.
“I also want to thank the UK authorities for their co-operation and assistance since the leak began. Now, it is important that we continue to work together with the authorities to conclude the ongoing investigations, take into account lessons learnt and define the necessary conditions for restarting production of the Elgin-Franklin fields.”
Total has said the next phase will be to re-man the Elgin platform in order to cement plugs in the G4 well. This is expected to take several weeks. All 238 staff were evacuated from the Elgin platform when gas started spewing from the installation on March 25.
Total’s chief executive Christophe de Margerie told shareholders that the leak would cost the firm £186m-£248m in lost production.
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