Goliat oil: On-off-on-off-on-off

After being offline since Christmas, production of crude oil resumed on February 3rd. That lasted for some few days. On Wednesday, production was halted once more.

Since production at Goliat, the world’s northernmost offshore oil platform, officially started in March last year, oil pumping has been on-off-on-off several times.

Head of Communication with ENI Norge, Andreas Wulff, says to Teknisk Ukeblad the reason is a failure in a valve.

Wulff estimates production to be online again within some few days.

In August last year, the Goliat platform lost all power and personnel was brought to land. 

After the shut-down in Christmas, Norway’s Petroleum watchdog wrote a notice of order expressing concern about the Italian oil company. «Eni has revealed a limited ability to implement existing plans,» the Petroleum Safety Authority stated.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Goliat field in the Barents Sea was discovered 16 years ago. Estimated production will be some 100,000 barrels per day. The oil will be stored in the floater itself before being reloaded to tankers and sailed to the markets. When production is on its top, it is estimated that one tanker will leave with oil every week. The Goliat platform has capacity to store one million barrels of oil.