OSLO - Royal Dutch/Shell said on Monday that its platform in the Draugen oilfield in the North Sea had reopened, 10 days after it was shut down after the discovery of a small oil condensate leak.
"We re-started it this morning and it should produce at full capacity by this evening," Shell spokeswoman Kitty Eide told AFP.
Royal Dutch/Shell operates the only platform in the Draugen field, Norway's main producing field, which produces 120,000 barrels per day.
The platform was shut down on March 4 after a leak of condensate, a very light type of oil, was found on the deck.
In January the platform was shut for a week, after bad weather delayed the repair of damaged loading equipment, and two North Sea oil platforms operated by Norway's Statoil remained shut for more than two months after being hit by a gas leak last November.
The closures contributed to higher prices in international oil markets.
Norway is the world's third-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and Russia, producing an average of three million barrels per day.
03/14/2005 15:46 GMT