 |
Oil giant
Shell is battling an oil leak in a North Sea pipeline off
the British coast (AFP/File, Shaun Curry) |
Oil giant
Royal Dutch Shell has said it is working to stop a leak at one of its North Sea
oil platforms.
The company
would not say how much oil may have been spilt from the Gannet Alpha platform
though it said it had "stemmed the leak significantly".
One of the
wells at the Gannet oilfield has been closed, but the company would not say if
production was reduced.
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| Royal
Dutch Shell is working to repair a leak on a North Sea oil platform |
"We
can confirm we are managing an oil leak in a flow line that serves the
Shell-operated Gannet Alpha platform. We deployed a remote-operated vehicle to
check for a subsea leak after a light sheen was noticed in the area," said
a Shell spokesman.
"We
have stemmed the leak significantly and we are taking further measures to
isolate it. The subsea well has been shut in, and the flow line is being
de-pressurised," he added.
'Finite
amount'
The company
confirmed the leak was continuing but said it was being significantly reduced.
A
spokesperson for the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "We
are aware of the incident and we are contact with Shell and we investigating it
in the usual way but what we understand from Shell, the spill is limited.
"There
is a finite amount of oil that can be released."
The entire
Gannet field reportedly produced around 13,500 barrels of oil between January
and April of this year.
The field
is co-owned by US oil firm Exxon.
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| The impact of an oil spill near Ikarama in the Niger delta. Photograph: Amnesty International UK |
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