Restart of Brent oil, gas platforms unclear: Shell

The timing of the restart of four Brent oil and gas platforms in the North Sea remains unclear after they were shut on Saturday, a spokeswoman for operator Royal Dutch Shell said on Tuesday.

All non-essential staff on Brent Bravo were taken off the platform over the weekend, when one of the fenders protecting it from service vessels fell into the sea, and Shell decided to shut down the four linked Brent platforms as a precaution.

The Brent A, B, C and D platforms together produce about 4.5 million cubic metres a day of gas, or less than 2% of current UK gas demand, and just 20,000 barrels per day of oil.

"Production has been halted on all the four Brent platforms since Saturday," the spokeswoman said, declining to give a likely restart date.

"These are precautionary measures while we inspect the fenders at the waterline at Brent Bravo ... No one was harmed and there was no significant damage."

A spokeswoman for Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa), which took over operatorship of the Brent pipeline system from Shell in 2009, said the shut down of the four Brent platforms had not impacted operations of the wider system, which carries crude from some 20 North Sea oilfields to Sullom Voe in the Shetlands.

Brent was once Britain's largest oilfield and has global significance as part of the European benchmark, used for pricing around two thirds of internationally traded crude oil.

To make the benchmark more liquid, other North Sea crude oil grades -- Forties, Oseberg and Ekofisk -- have been bolted on to the marker grade because of the decline in production from the mature Brent fields.