Total SA Closes Elgin-Franklin Gas Field In N. Sea After Failing To Hit Production Targets - BBerg

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Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Total SA, Europe's third-largest oil company, shut its Elgin-Franklin natural-gas and condensate fields in the U.K. North Sea on Feb. 4 after output failed to meet specifications. ``We're shutting Elgin-Franklin down,'' Jenny Costelloe, a spokeswoman for Total in Aberdeen, Scotland, said today by telephone. ``We are trying to maintain condensate production at a limited rate,'' she said, without specifying current output.

Gas to be delivered during the rest of this month rose 1.9 percent to 49.25 pence a therm at 4:23 p.m. local time, according to prices from broker ICAP Plc on Bloomberg. That's $9.65 a million British thermal units. A therm is 100,000 Btus. Brent crude oil for March settlement gained as much as $1 in the hours following the news. An amine unit, which removes acid from natural gas, will be inspected on the evening of Feb. 7 or on Feb. 8. ``It will become clear what the problem is then and we hope to be able to resolve it within a couple of days,'' Costelloe said.

The closure of Elgin-Franklin had been delayed by bad weather in the North Sea last week, she added, though production has been reduced since late December. Gas is exported from the fields to Royal Dutch Shell Plc's Bacton Seal terminal in Norfolk, England.

The terminal has received an average of 12 million cubic meters a day so far this year, 40 percent less than the average 20 million cubic meters a day in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to National Grid Plc data on Bloomberg.

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