Damaged FPSO May Cost Maersk Oil 5.3M BOE UK Production [REPORT]

COPENHAGEN (Dow Jones)–Danish oil and gas company Maersk Oil stands to lose production of up to 5.3 million barrels of oil equivalent due to extensive repair works on a floating production unit damaged in a storm last winter in the U.K. North Sea, reports Danish business daily Borsen Monday.

Maersk Oil’s Gryphon floating production, storage and offloading unit, currently under repair in Rotterdam, services a number of the company’s offshore U.K. oilfields.

The platform tore loose during a heavy storm, suffered severe damage, and will be out of production for up to a year while it’s being repaired, writes Borsen.

Maersk Oil has a normal daily production in the U.K. North Sea of about 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent, of which about a third hinges on the services of Gryphon.

Maersk Oil, a unit of Danish industrial conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S (MAERSK-B.KO), doesn’t expect the FPSO will return to full production before the Spring of 2012, Maersk Oil U.K. managing director Martin Rune Pedersen now told Borsen.

At current prices, the resulting production fall could equal a revenue of about DKK3.2 billion, or a net profit of roughly DKK350 million, Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen said to Borsen.

Newspaper website: http://www.borsen.dk

-By Flemming Emil Hansen, Dow Jones Newswires