Britannia field resumes output after evacuation

London: Oil and gas production from Chev-ron Corp's Britannia field in the UK North Sea resumed yesterday after a halt forced by an emergency platform evacuation.

Production at Britannia was "shut in as a precaution," Chevron spokes-woman Laura Easton said today in a telephone interview. It resumed at about 4:30pm local time yesterday, she said.

Helicopters were used to evacuate about 500 people from Britannia after a hoax bomb alert on a workers' accommodation platform.

Gas flows into the St. Fergus Mobil sub-terminal in Scotland, where fuel from the Britannia field arrives, returned to normal yesterday, National Grid data showed.

Deliveries into the terminal dropped to a rate of 6.5 million cubic metres a day yesterday. Gas flows into the terminal were 32.5 million cubic metres a day at 8:13 am local time, data showed.

The Britannia field is owned by Chevron with a 32.38 per cent holding, ConocoPhillips, which has 58.65 per cent, and BP Plc with 8.97 per cent.

Britannia produced an average of 15,800 barrels a day of oil in the year ending October 2007, according to the UK's Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory reform.