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OSLO (Reuters) – An oil tanker and a frigate from the Norwegian Navy collided on Thursday off the west coast of Norway, injuring eight and closing a North Sea crude oil export terminal , Norway's largest gas processing plant and several offshore fields.
Norwegian frigate "KNM Helge Ingstad" takes water after a collision with tanker "Sola TS" in Oygarden, Norway, on November 8, 2018. NTB Scanpix / Marit Hommedal via REUTERS
The frigate, who recently took part in a major NATO military drill, tilted from one side to the other and was sinking slowly, showing live TV footage. The Norwegian Army said it was trying to save the ship.
"The army is leading a rescue operation in cooperation with the coastguard," the Norwegian army said in a statement.
The Kollsnes gas plant, with a processing capacity of 144.5 million cubic meters a day, has also been closed, said Equinor. We did not know right away when he would restart operations.
The plant processes gas from the Troll, Kvitebjoern and Visund deposits and sends it to Britain and the rest of Europe. The gas outlet of the Troll A platform had been shut down, said a spokeswoman for Equinor.
Wholesale gas prices in the United Kingdom increased before the incident and increased further thereafter. The gas for immediate delivery rose 6.2% to 66.50 pence per hour at 11:36 GMT. As Norway is a major gas supplier in Great Britain, major blackouts can affect gas prices in the United Kingdom.
Flows from Norway to Britain decreased by 14-15 million cubic meters due to Kollsnes failure.
"The Norwegian breakdowns caused by the collision resulted in additional purchases. The market was already very optimistic because of the lower temperatures. It is also unclear how long these outages will last, "said a British gas trafficker.
There was no evidence of a leak from the tanker Sola TS, although he returned to the port for inspection, Ben Vikoeren, who is responsible for the rescue operations at the rescue coordination center in the south, told Reuters. from Norway.
The tanker had left Equinor Sture's oil shipping terminal with a cargo of crude oil, and the facility would be temporarily closed as a precaution, the company said.
The Sture terminal receives oil from several fields in the North Sea, including Oseberg, Grane, Svalin, Edvard Grieg and Ivar Aasen.
The Sture Terminal has the capacity to store one million cubic meters of crude oil and 60,000 cubic meters of liquefied petroleum gas in rock chambers.
The LPG mixture and the naphtha are also exported from the terminal via the Vestprosess pipeline to the Mongstad oil terminal.
Equinor did not specify how long the Sture terminal would remain closed, adding that the Oseberg and Grane oil production, operated by the company, had been shut down.
Oseberg is one of the raw waterways at the base of the world benchmark Brent oil. Brent futures rose 71 cents to 72.78 dollars per barrel at 10:07 GMT.
The production of Ivar Aasen, who produced about three hundred and fifty thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day in the third quarter, was also halted, said BP operator Aker BP to Reuters.
Production of the Edvard Grieg field has also been halted, an informed source said.
The 137-member KNM Helge Ingstad frigate was evacuated, Vikoeren said. Eight people were slightly injured.
The Sola TS, an Aframax class ship built in 2017, belongs to Tsakos Energy Navigation, according to the company's website.
KNM Helge Ingstad had recently taken part in NATO's Trident Juncture military exercise, focused on the defense of Norway.
Other reports by Camilla Knudsen, Nerijus Adomaitis and Nina Chestney, written by Gwladys Fouche, edited by Raissa Kasolowsky and David Evans
