Lack of Documentation Reason for Yme Platform Evacuation, Talisman Says

Talisman Energy, the operator of the Yme field and Yme MOPUstor platform which was yesterday evacuated, provided more details on the matter.

“The reason why we chose to evacuate the installation was that we failed to receive a piece of documentation regarding the jack-up, and for security reasons we chose to evacuate,” the company’s spokesman Andreas Middlethon informed Reuters.

He told Reuters that since the substructure of the platform was vital for the security of the facility, Talisman didn’t want to risk anything and thus decided to evacuate personnel until the documentation is available.

“We do not know the duration of this delay, but hope that SBM will be able to furnish the required documentation soon,” Middlethon told Reuters.

The troublesome Yme field, located 100 km offshore Norway, was supposed to deliver first oil back in 2010, but has failed to do so, mainly due to the issues with the platform delivered by the Netherlands-based SBM Offshore. Independent technical studies have indicated that a substantial amount of work is still required to complete the facility to meet Norwegian specifications.

Due to these timing uncertainties Talisman in May 2011 announced it would remove Yme from their forward production projection.

On that occasion, Talisman expressed concern over the continued delays in the delivery of the platform, and said that it was considering all options to complete the Yme development.

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Offshore Energy Today Staff, July 12, 2012