The Hindu Business Line : Explosion at Panna-Mukta fields halts production

Mumbai, June 5 A minor explosion at the offshore Panna-Mukta oil and gas fields, jointly held by BG India, ONGC and Reliance Industries, on Tuesday has led to a temporary shut down of the fields. The incident also claimed the life of a person.

The production loss is about 40,000 barrels of oil and 3.5 million standard cubic meters per day of gas. Tapti gas field remains unaffected.

The ‘operator responsibility’ for the oil and gas fields is vested with by BG India, which is a group company of the BG Group Plc of UK.

The incident occurred on Tuesday at the Panna platform. However, it was kept under warps.

The deceased person was an employee of a private contractor working under the operator of the field.

In spite of repeated attempts, senior officials of BG India, including its corporate communications department, were not available for comment.

However, when contacted by Business Line, Ms Edel McCaffrey, Head of Media Relations, UK, confirmed the incident, stating that an inquiry has been launched.

Restarting Operations may take time

Industry sources said the explosion has damaged gas dehydrating facilities and hot oil furnace at the platform. Efforts are on to restart oil and gas production at the earliest, but restarting full-fledged production could take a longer time, as hot oil furnace, a critical equipment, takes several more days to replace, sources said.

They said that Panna-Mukta field was shut down for maintenance work on that fateful day. However, when the facility was being restarted at 9 p.m., the explosion occurred.