Gas leak halts production in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 16, 2015 – Brazilian state-run operator Petrobras halted production from its P-40 platform located in the Marlim Sul oil and gasfield on Sunday following a gas leak on the unit, Brazil’s petroleum regulator said on Monday.

The regulator, known as the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels, said in a statement that the situation was quickly controlled following the leak and that no environmental damage was caused, Reuters reported.

The regulator added that production was in the process of being normalised.

Before the leak, the semi-submersible P-40 production platform, located 175-kilometres offshore Rio de Janeiro, was producing around 45,915 barrels of oil and 800,000 cubic meters of natural gas per day.

The platform is at the centre of a network of five platforms at the Marlim Sul field and at the centre of the country’s oil and gas pipelines that interlink underwater gas pipelines into a single export line that send the gas directly to the coast.

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