San Francisco: Production at Petrobras’ offshore P-40 platform remained suspended on Monday after a gas leak on the vessel caused its Sunday shutdown.
The P-40 is a semi-submersible production platform in the Marlim Sul field of the Campos Basin, about 110 miles offshore Rio de Janeiro.
Petrobras, Brazil’s troubled state-run energy giant, said the leak was quickly controlled and that production was in the process of being normalized though no time for resumption was given.
At the time it was shut down the P-40 was producing about 45,915 barrels of oil and 800,000 cubic metres of natural gas a day.
Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, a federal regulatory body known by its Portuguese initials ANP, confirmed the shutdown in a statement, adding that no oil or gas was leaked into the ocean.
Petrobras was treading carefully, mindful of other recent rig shutdowns. Four months ago an explosion at a Petrobras rig offshore Espirito Santo state killed nine people and injured 26. And in March safety concerns led to the temporary shutdown of the P-58 platform in the Parque das Baleias field.
The energy giant has been wrestling with horrendous image problems for being at the hub of a huge corruption scandal.
