MOSCOW (MRC) -- Total said Tuesday it had a suspected case of coronavirus on a rig at its Culzean gas field in the UK North Sea, but production was unaffected, reported S&P Global.
A morning helicopter flight to change crew members at the gas facility was cancelled when the suspected case became apparent, a spokesman said.
"We are monitoring the situation and working closely with Maersk Drilling," which operates the rig, the spokesman said.
Culzean came on line in the middle of last year and is a major source of gas for the UK, with a maximum output capacity of 16 million cu m/d at present.
gas to the Teesside processing plant in Northeast England.
The issue of helicopter flights to facilities with suspected coronavirus cases is emerging as a significant issue for the North Sea industry in the current health crisis, with helicopter providers reluctant to serve such facilities.
So far, no cases of coronavirus in the UK offshore workforce have been publicly confirmed, although this may be due to a lack of testing capacity.
As MRC wrote before, Total has recently disclosed that it is evaluating construction of a new gas cracker at its Deasan, South Korea, joint venture (JV) with Hanwha Chemical.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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