BP evacuates workers from North Sea platform amid power issue

Oil major BP has evacuated non-essential personnel from the ETAP platform located in the UK North Sea following a power issue. 

In an email sent to Offshore Energy Today, a spokesperson for BP said: “Following an issue with the power generation system on the ETAP platform, BP can confirm that – as a precautionary measure – we have removed non-essential personnel.”

The spokesperson added that, of the 134 people on board, 63 were flown to Aberdeen on Tuesday evening.

Production from the platform, located about 100 miles east of Aberdeen, has been temporarily suspended.

The spokesperson also said that BP was working to resolve the power generation issue.

BP marked 20 years of production from the ETAP development in July 2018. ETAP, often regarded as one of the most ambitious and commercially complex developments in the North Sea, comprises multiple fields with varying ownership arrangements sharing a central processing facility (CPF).

The ETAP CPF sits over the Marnock field and comprises a production drilling riser platform linked by bridge to a quarters and utilities platform with capacity for 156 people.

A normally unmanned installation (NUI) over Mungo stands around 20km to the east of the CPF. Apart from Mungo, which has surface wellheads on the NUI, all other ETAP fields are connected to the CPF via subsea infrastructure. Liquids from the ETAP fields are exported to the Kinneil Terminal, Grangemouth, through the Forties Pipeline System (FPS) and gas is exported by the Central Area Transmission System (CATS) to Teesside.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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