Nfld. & Labrador·New
Hibernia’s owner says it is monitoring the discharge of oil and water into the ocean that happened Wednesday morning on its platform southeast of St. John’s.
Oil and water discharged Wednesday morning from a storage cell
CBC News ·
Hibernia’s owner says it is monitoring the discharge of oil and water into the ocean that happened Wednesday morning on its platform southeast of St. John’s.
The sheen, initially estimated to be 20 metres by 900 metres, is being monitored and is dissipating, said a news release from Hibernia Management and Development Company (HMDC).
The platform is about 315 kilometres southeast of St. John’s.
The company pointed to a leak of oil and water, discharged from a storage cell, as the culprit.
It called the discharge an “isolated activity,” and said the oil platform is still operating. No one was injured.
The amount leaked is not yet known, as HMDC said it’s working to determine the volume.
HMDC said it has been mechanically dispersing the oil mix, as well as using sorbent booms to soak up discharge from the ocean surface.
HMDC has notified the Newfoundland and Labrador government, as well as the offshore regulating body the C-NLOPB and other stakeholders, of the incident.
In 2017, HMDC had to pay $250,000 in connection with a 2013 oil spill at the platform.
The offshore oil platform was the province’s first, and started producing oil in 1997. It had produced one billion barrels of oil by 2016.
