Oil giant BP’s Chief Executive Officer John Browne said on Tuesday the company’s U.S. Thunder Horse oil development was unlikely to come on stream before the end of the year.
He told BBC Radio the $1-billion development was “unlikely to be up and running” before the end of the year.
Browne later declined to speculate on the likely start-up to reporters at a news conference.
A BP spokesman said the company would continue investigating what happened to the platform which was discovered to be tilting 20 to 30 degrees on July 11 after Hurricane Dennis hit the Gulf of Mexico.
Since then, BP has slowly leveled the platform.
“By our third quarter results we should be in a better position to know when it will begin pumping,” the spokesman said.
He said output would have been low to start with, if the project had come on stream as planned, because there would have only been one or two wells producing anyway.
In an interview with CNBC Europe on Tuesday, Browne said the enormous facility was stable and floating at the right angle.
“We know several things. First, we know that the sub-sea equipment, which is the most expensive part of this project has not been affected by what happened to the floating rig,” Browne said.
“Secondly, we have only just got access to the floating rig so it is going to take us a bit of time to see whether there is any damage, if any, on that rig. We will know in good time for our third-quarter results what the implications are.”
The semi-submersible platform is the largest facility of its kind in the world and is due to produce 250,000 barrels of oil per day at full capacity, or about 17 percent of current U.S. crude production from the Gulf of Mexico.
