Safety efforts ‘ongoing’ at Taqa

Taqa’s European boss has insisted the firm is “relentlessly” focused on safe and reliable operations despite a crew member sustaining a minor injury on a North Sea platform last month.

The worker had to be flown to hospital after a “small fire” broke out on Tern Alpha, 105 miles north-east of Shetland.

Donald Taylor, managing director of Taqa Europe, said the fire was quickly put out and that production was restored within 36 hours.

He said that initiatives to improve the safety culture were ongoing at the Abu Dhabi-owned company.

Mr Taylor, who is based at Westhill, near Aberdeen, believes the business is “wellpositioned” to record strong full-year results.

Yesterday, Taqa posted

“Due to natural decline and deferred capital projects”

its results for the first nine months of 2019, which showed pre-tax profits of £87 million for its European oil and gas division, down 13.5% on the same period last year, while revenues slid 17.8% to £569m.

Taqa’s European output, which comes from the UK and Netherlands, declined by 4% to 38,532 barrels of oil equivalent per day due to “natural decline and deferred capital projects”.

The company’s recent UK North Sea activities include well plugging and abandonment at the Pelican field and drilling at the Cormorant field.

It was due to complete a £50m programme to extend the lives of the Eider, Otter and North Cormorant fields earlier this year.

The wider group’s pre-tax profits were £259m during the nine months to September 30, down 23% year-onyear. Revenues were 3.3% lower at £2.78 billion.