KUALA LUMPUR (April 17): Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd does not expect the temporary halt at its Anasuria floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel to impact the group's crude oil offtake schedule or have any material effect on its financial year ending June 30, 2019.

In a filing to the stock exchange today, the oil and gas exploration and production company said the Anasuria FPSO had been subjected to a routine visit by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in late February 2019.

Following the visit, it said Petrofac Facilities Management, as duty holder of the offshore production facility, was instructed through a prohibition notice, to temporarily halt production pending the mitigation of a potential risk identified by HSE inspectors in relation to the asset's flare tip.

"As a result, production was temporarily halted and over the next six days, decisive action was taken by Petrofac and Anasuria Hibiscus UK Ltd to mitigate any potential risk.

"Other previously planned maintenance work was also simultaneously undertaken during this period. There were no injuries or loss of containment as a result of this matter," Hibiscus said in the filing.

It added that Petrofac is appealing the issuance of the prohibition notice by the HSE.

The company was responding to an article published on Upstream Online yesterday titled "Petrofac launches appeal against UK prohibition notice".

According to the article, the prohibition notice was served against Petrofac, which has been running the FPSO on behalf of Anasuria Operating Company (AOC), a joint venture between Hibiscus and Ping Petroleum UK Ltd, since 2016.

Anasuria Hibiscus UK Ltd jointly operates the Anasuria Cluster via AOC with Ping Petroleum.

At 11.07am, shares of Hibiscus were trading two sen or 1.77% lower at RM1.11. Trading of the stock was earlier halted from 9am to 10am pending the announcement.