Oil giant ConocoPhillips has been fined £3m ($4.43m) for allowing 603 kg of what a UK judge described as “potentially explosive” gas to be leaked from a platform off the east coast of England.
Approximately 66 people were put in danger when the gas was released from the company’s offshore gas gathering system off Mablethorpe in November 2012.
During maintenance, a key valve was left open allowing the gas to vent into a turbine hall.
“The failures here were not isolated but systemic and they posed extreme risk of serious harm or death,” a local judge ruled.
