North Sea Gas Pipeline Faces Threat of Closure
The move could knock out 10% of UK’s gas capacity and lead to the closure of a gas terminal
ConocoPhillips is drawing up plans to shut down one of the North Sea’s biggest gas pipeline systems in a move that threatens to knock out 10 per cent of the UK’s gas capacity and a string of active fields.
The US company is locked in talks with the industry regulator about the future of the Lincolnshire Offshore Gas Gathering System, one of 15 big gas networks in the UK section of the North Sea.
One oil industry executive said that ConocoPhillips’s “preference would be to shut down” both the pipeline and the Theddlethorpe gas terminal, which processes North Sea gas and pumps it into the national gas grid. He warned that this would lead to a cascade of closures of fields which rely on the infrastructure, dealing a severe blow to the embattled industry.
At least ten gasfields, including the Audrey and Anglia fields owned by Centrica and Ithaca Energy as well as others controlled by BP and Perenco, rely on the Lincolnshire pipeline. The fields could be forced to…
