Supply boat hits Oseberg East platform

A supply vessel crashed this morning into the Statoil-operated Oseberg East platform in the North Sea, offshore Norway.

According to Offshore.no, a Norwegian energy news website, sixty workers sat in the lifeboats for two hours following the incident.

The incident reportedly occurred at 1:40 a.m. urging the workers to follow the safety procedure and board the lifeboats.

The workers left the lifeboats around 3:40 am, after it had been determined that the crash caused minor material damage.

Production from the platform was shut, and is expected to resume later today, Reuters has reported, citing Statoil’s spokesperson Lars Kindingstad.

The smallest platform in the Oseberg area, Oseberg East, lies 25 kilometres north-east of the Oseberg Field Centre. The field is developed with an integrated drilling, accommodation and production platform with equipment for first phase processing.

The oil goes through second and third phase processing at the Oseberg Field Centre, before it is transported in an oil pipeline to the Sture terminal.