Harsh weather hinders clean-up of N.Sea oil spill

By John Acher

OSLO (Reuters) - About 25,000 barrels of oil spilled into the Norwegian sector of the North Sea at the Statfjord oilfield on Wednesday and rough weather hindered the clean-up, operator StatoilHydro and energy officials said.

The coastal authority said it saw only a small chance that the oil would reach Norway's coast but predictions were uncertain. StatoilHydro said the weather was so harsh that clean-up vessels headed for the site could not scoop up the oil.

"Observations from aircraft and helicopters indicate that the oil slick is currently about eight kilometers long by one wide," Norwegian energy group StatoilHydro said in a statement.

The spill occurred while oil was being loaded from a storage unit to a tanker and has been halted, oil safety officials said.

"Four vessels are on the way out with skimming equipment but unfortunately because of the weather we cannot collect the oil right now," StatoilHydro's spokesman Kai Nielsen said. "There is too much wind, too high waves."

The company is discussing with the authorities whether to spray the oil spill with chemicals from the air to break it up into particles that would then sink, Nielsen said.

Winds are blowing towards the north, officials said.

"We see the probability as being small that this spill will reach the shores," director Tor Christian Sletner of the Norwegian Coastal Administration told Reuters.