OMV has ceased oil production in offshore field

Baku. 24 November. REPORT.AZ/ Austrian OMV has ceased oil production and is de-manning the Maari wellhead platform (WHP) offshore New Zealand.

Report informs citing the foreign media, the platform is being shut down as a precautionary measure while it deals with a fatigue crack found in one of the platform’s horizontal struts.

The crack is about 1.4 meters long, on the third level down, and 4m below the waterline. It was identified this week.Production has been suspended until December 5.

13 of the 34 staff on the WHP left the platform yesterday, more will leave today and the remainder tomorrow.

The Maari field is located 80 km off the Taranaki coast in water depths of about 100m. It is operated by OMV New Zealand Ltd (69%) on behalf of the Maari JV which includes Todd Maari Ltd (16%), Horizon Oil International (10%), and Cue Taranaki (5%).. There are 12 horizontal struts.