Faulty valve blamed for massive oil spill off Newfoundland

A Husky Energy executive says it isn't clear exactly why a valve failed causing aflowline to the SeaRoseFPSOto spillan estimated 250,000 litres of oil into the Atlantic Ocean on Friday.

Trevor Pritchard, Husky's senior vice president for the Atlantic region, said the leadership on board theSeaRosemade the decision that rough seas and stormy conditions had subsided enoughto resume production on Friday and began procedures to startup again.

It was during a process of moving warm oil from the SeaRose through the lines, he said, when thevalve failed and the oil spilled.

"I can't tell you too much as to the reason why it failed," said Pritchard.

"We're going to have to investigate as to why, at such a low pressure, this particular device, the flowline connector to the manifold, came apart as it did."

He said oil was flowing well below the line's maximumpressure, and that Husky plans to bring up the broken connector from the ocean's floor for further investigation.

Pritchard said the spill was a "batch spill," and the pumping of oil was halted soon after the spill was found.

Culture change

This isn't the first time Husky Energy has found itself in hot water. The SeaRosehad a close call with an iceberg in March 2017.

Pritchard said the company did the right thing in the case of this spill, however.

"If I reflect back on the incident with the iceberg, we should have and could have done better with that incident. We did not follow the procedures, we should have disconnected the FPSO when the iceberg was as close as that," he said.

"In this case, as far as our investigation's gone so far, all of the procedures have been followed I appreciate this is a terrible spill, and I don't [want to] have this again."

Pritchard was brought in after the iceberg incident and believes there has been a culture change that will prevent serious incidents in the future.

Hebronresumes production

The Hebron oil platform is once again producing oil, however, according to the C-NLOPB, after stormy seas and reports of smoke shut it down for nearly fivedays.

In a tweet sent Monday afternoon, the province's offshore regulatorsaid it felt ExxonMobil, the majority partner behind the $14-billion facility, had done the required checks to ensure a restart wouldn't be affected by the bad weather or rough seas resulting from last Thursday's major storm.

The storm prompted the shutdown of allNewfoundland and Labrador offshore facilities, and resulted in the worst offshore oil spill in the province's history, from theSeaRoseFPSO in the White Rose oil field. According to a release sent by Husky Monday evening, operation at the SeaRoseremains on hold.

Typically, offshore companiesdon't needC-NLOPBapproval to resume operation, said a spokesperson from the board.

Because of the spill, which is believed to have occurred when Husky brought the SeaRose back into production Friday, all operators have been ordered to get authorization before they start producing again, the spokesperson said.

As of Tuesday morning, Hebron is the only offshore operator that has been granted permission to resume.

An official from ExxonMobiltold CBCNews the platform was shut down Thursday because of the bad weather. Crew members were also called to muster Thursday afternoon afterreports of smoke in the platform's living quarters.

There were 200 people on board at the time, the spokesperson said.

The Hebronplatform is located in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin, 350 kilometres southeastof St. John's.

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