San Francisco: Drilling resumed at the Isobel Deep well offshore Falklands as problems with a blowout preventer (BOP) were fixed after a two-and-a-half week suspension for safety reasons.
Production had stopped on the Eirik Raude semisubmersible drilling rig back on April 24 when a problem was detected in a blowout preventer, a vital safety device.
But British operator Premier Oil, a partner in this project, said repairs to the BOP control system and re-testing of the BOP stack have been completed and the Eirik Raude is back in action there.
Isobel Deep is in the north Falklands Basin and is part of a five-to-six well exploration campaign in the Falklands by Premier and its partner companies.
British and American oil companies involved in these drillings have stirred ill-will in Argentina, which claims sovereignty over the Falklands.
A BOP is a valve-like device designed to prevent catastrophic blowouts caused by erratic pressures in offshore drilling. Failure of a BOP was the prime cause of 2010’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
