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Total UK Field Outage Cuts Forties Oil Supply-Traders

  • Oil flows along the Forties oil pipeline have been curbed by the shutdown of Total's Elgin platform on Sunday following a gas leak, oil traders said on Tuesday.Oil produced at the facility is exported via the BP-operated Forties Pipeline System.Two oil trading sources said Total's Elgin-Franklin site has been providing about 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) to Forties.Forties is important for the global oil market because it usually sets the value of dated Brent, the benchmark for pricing up to 70 percent of the world's physical oil, and is part of the underlying market for Brent futures.Oil trading sources said there had been no impact yet on loadings of Forties cargoes, although there was a risk of delays should the shutdown continue.

  • "There might be the odd deferral, but we'll see how it goes," said one.The Forties oil stream is scheduled to export about 440,000 bpd in April, according to the loading programme.Around five of the 600,000-barrel Forties cargoes scheduled to load in April have been delayed, trading sources said, as a result of unrelated production problems including at Nexen's Buzzard field.In the physical oil market, Forties crude was offered at a higher premium on Monday.A spokesman for BP declined on Tuesday to comment on flows though the pipeline. (Reporting by Alex Lawler; Editing by Jason Neely)

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