North Sea exclusion zone set as gas surges from leak
Reuters
2012-03-27
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ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION
STORY: A cloud of explosive natural gas boiling out of the North Sea from a leak at Total's Elgin platform forced wider evacuations off the Scottish coast on Tuesday as the French firm warned it may take six months to halt the flow.
Dubbed "the well from hell" by a Norwegian environmentalist who said the high pressure of the undersea reservoirs in the field made it especially hard to shut off, a plume of gas was visible over the platform, officials said, and a sheen of oil, also produced from the rig, was spreading over the water.
Officials imposed an air and sea exclusion zone around the platform, which had been pumping 9 million cubic metres of gas per day or three percent of Britain's natural gas output and lies some 150 miles (240 km) east of the city of Aberdeen.
STORY: A cloud of explosive natural gas boiling out of the North Sea from a leak at Total's Elgin platform forced wider evacuations off the Scottish coast on Tuesday as the French firm warned it may take six months to halt the flow.
Dubbed "the well from hell" by a Norwegian environmentalist who said the high pressure of the undersea reservoirs in the field made it especially hard to shut off, a plume of gas was visible over the platform, officials said, and a sheen of oil, also produced from the rig, was spreading over the water.
Officials imposed an air and sea exclusion zone around the platform, which had been pumping 9 million cubic metres of gas per day or three percent of Britain's natural gas output and lies some 150 miles (240 km) east of the city of Aberdeen.
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