Covid-19 Alert at Norwegian Platform
A worker at the Martin Linge oil and gas field in the North Sea has tested positive for the coronavirus (Covid-19), operator Equinor reported on March 11.
The person arrived at the field's platform on March 4, having recently been to Austria. They were quarantined and tested after Austria was declared a high-risk zone. The worker is not seriously ill, and it has not yet been decided whether to bring them ashore.
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Tests have been carried out on two more staff, and results are pending. Equinor has introduced measures to contain a potential spread of the virus and it is in dialogue with Norwegian health authorities on what additional steps to take.
Activity at the field has been reduced, the company said.
Martin Linge is due to start production in the third quarter of 2020, four years behind the original schedule, with earlier delays due in part to a fatal crane crash at the Korean shipyard tasked with supplying its platform. In October, the Norwegian government revealed in its 2020 budget that the project's costs had ballooned to krone 56.1bn ($6.2bn), from a previous estimate of krone 47.1bn and an original krone 29.6bn projection when development was approved in 2012.