courtesy Petro-Canada

Heavy icebergs of the million-tonne variety has forced Husky Energy to shut in up to 110,000 barrels per day of production at the White Rose field offshore Eastern Canada.

Some 80 crew have been evacuated from the Sea Rose floating production, storage and offloading vessel, while the GSF Grand Bank drill rig, with 109 onboard, has been towed to 40 kilometres clear of the oilfield, the Canadian Press has reported.

When the news emerged, Husky had been heralding the approval of its North Amerthyst Development near the Sea Rose FPSO floating production storage and offloading vessel. Amerthyst lies 350 kilometres southeast of the Newfoundland coast and cotains three satellite oilfields in the Jeanne d’Arc Basin good for 70 million barrels of reserves.

Husky plans a series of sub-sea tie-backs to the SeaRose FPSO from Amerthyst and other fields.

Meanwhile, an application to develop the South White Rose Extension tie-back received government approval in September 2007, and an evaluation of the resource potential at the West White Rose Extension continues, a statement aid.

A project team based in St. John's continues to advance engineering, design and future development for all three tie-ins: 11 wells are planned for the North Amethyst satellite tie-back.

Husky, operates White Rose through a 69-percent stake and is joined by Petro-Canada (26 percent) and a new entity of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador owns five percent.

ws@scandoil.net

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