UK HSE Still Assessing Case for Elgin Restart

LONDON - U.K. offshore regulator the Health and Safety Executive said Friday that it is still assessing proposals submitted by French oil company Total SA for the restart of the Elgin gas field and could not give a date for when approval might be given.

Total submitted its plans to the HSE in the last week of November to restart Elgin, which was shut down last year due to a gas leak. Typically the HSE makes a decision within 90 days, a time frame that lapsed at the end of February.

A spokesman for the HSE said it is still assessing the safety case for the Elgin restart and that the matter is complex.

The timing of the restart of production at the Eglin-Franklin facilities, which contributed around 9% of the U.K.'s oil and gas production before the shutdown, is important for the U.K. economy as it teeters on the brink of its third recession in five years.

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