UK's Bruce, Rhum gas field restarts unclear -BP

LONDON, Aug 8 (Reuters) - There is still no indication when Britain's Bruce and Rhum gas fields may be able to restart as investigations into how to deal with their pipeline equipment problem continue, operator BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday.

Bruce, which produced about 5.8 milion cubic metres of gas a day in March, and Rhum with output of around 6.5 mcm a day, were due to return from annual maintenance in mid July.

A problem with a temporary tool on the subsea pipeline connecting the two fields to the UK has delayed their restart and BP engineers are still working on a plan to resolve it.

"The team are still looking at how they can deal with that issue," a spokesman for the company said, adding that it was impossible to give any timescale for their restart.

"We won't know that until they decide on what the best plan is and then they will be able to tell how long that will take ... They will have to develop quite a detailed plan for how they move forward ... At the moment the fields Bruce and Rhum are still shut down."

(Reporting by Daniel Fineren)