Production Restarts at Goliat

Italy's Eni has restarted production at its Goliat oilfield off the coast of northern Norway and expects to reach full capacity soon, a spokesman for the operator said on Tuesday.

The Goliat field, situated in the Barents Sea, has a capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

The outage began on August 26 following a power outage and partial evacuation of Eni's platform, the latest in a series of safety incidents. Goliat gets its electrical power via a subsea cable from shore, which was at the time of construction the longest ever installed. The platform also experienced a problem with its electrical systems on May 10.

Since then, Eni said it had investigated internally and put improvement measures in place. The company has said its staff needed to improve its grasp of the field's potential risks.

Production started at Goliat on March 12, after an extended period of delays due in part to commissioning problems. Overall, it ran two years behind schedule and 20 percent over budget, and the PSA delayed production startup in December after an audit found deficiencies in electrical system safety, especially with regard to ignition sources.

Goliat is the first oil field to come on stream in the Barents Sea and is being developed using the largest and most sophisticated floating cylindrical FPSO concept in the world. Eni owns 65 percent of Goliat while Norway's Statoil holds the remaining 35 percent.