BP begins Forties oil pipeline shutdown

By Daniel Fineren

LONDON (Reuters) - BP began on Friday shutting its North Sea Forties pipeline system, which supplies up to half of Britain's oil, ahead of a strike planned this weekend at the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland.

Grangemouth also supplies power to a nearby plant which processes crude oil from the Forties pipeline. The power plant is due to shut on Saturday ahead of the strike by 1,200 refinery workers, which starts on Sunday.

The strike, the first to close a British refinery in over 70 years, has caused fears of fuel shortages in Scotland and northern England and triggered sharp rises in European diesel, gasoline and UK gas prices this week.

The shutdown of the Forties system takes about 24 hours and must be completed before the power station closes.

"We have started the process which will lead to shutdown," a BP spokesman said on Friday morning. "We expect that there will cease to be any throughput through the system after Saturday night."

The 700,000 barrel-a-day Forties pipeline carries up to half the UK's North Sea oil output from 70 fields, some of which began closing overnight on Thursday. A fifth of Britain's gas supply also relies on the Forties system.

The 200,000 barrel a day Buzzard oil field, one of the North Sea's largest, is among the operations that must grind to a halt with the pipeline, Canadian-based operator Nexen Inc said.

Other firms hit by the outage include Talisman Energy Inc, which will have to shut 20,000 barrels a day, more a fifth of its UK output, and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, which will forgo 12,000 barrels a day, a quarter of its North Sea production.