Full production ahead in White Rose oil field 9 months after massive oil spill

Husky Energy has been given the nodto resume pumping oil from the remaining two of its five drill centresin the White Rose oil field, after they were shut down following the largest oil spill in the province's history last November.

In a release sent Friday evening, the company said it expects to be pumping 20,000 barrels a day from the field once the centres are once again at full tilt.

"We regret the spill last year," said Rob Peabody, Husky Energy's chief executive officer in a release. "As a result of our investigation, we've enhanced our startup procedures, strengthened equipment and added more barriers to prevent failures. The lessons learned have also been shared broadly through the industry to try to prevent similar incidents in the future."

The 250,000-litre spillwas blamed on a faulty connector in the sprawling network of cables beneath the SeaRosefloating production storage and offloading vessel, about 350 kilometres off St. John's.

Husky has since retrieved that faulty connector and said small, ice-like crystals called hydratesformed when natural gas and water combine at low temperatures and high pressures may have collected in the connector and caused it to separate.

That connector has since been replaced.

Husky's plan to resumeproductionfromthe North Amethyst and South White Rose Extension drill centres was approved by the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board Friday.

The C-NLOPB said a third-party authority also reviewed and approved the plan.

Spill brought criticism of C-NLOPB

Production in the White Rose field was shut down the day of the spill. In January, itscentral drill centre began pumping again. Since then, the company has been slowly starting up the remaining centres, with approval from the C-NLOPB.

Inemails obtained through access to information legislation, CBC News foundNovember's spill resulted in a slick that was nearly the length of Fogo Island at one point.

The spill occurred as Husky Energy was trying to re-start operations on the SeaRosein 8.4-metre waves, during the tail end of one of themost severe stormstopummelthe province in years.

The C-NLOPB said at the time that Husky didn't require its approval to start up in the storm, drawing questions from critics about how much authority the regulator should and does have, and when it should step in.

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