This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 18, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: 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 with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, the oil and gas exploration and production company said the Anasuria FPSO had been subjected to a routine visit by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in late February 2019.

Following the visit, it said Petrofac Facilities Management Ltd, as the 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 losses of containment as a result of this matter,” Hibiscus said in its filing.

It added that Petrofac is appealing against the HSE’s prohibition notice.

Hibiscus was responding to an article published on Upstream Online yesterday, which wrote that Petrofac was appealling against the prohibition notice. According to the report, Petrofac 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 jointly operates the Anasuria Cluster via AOC with Ping Petroleum.

Hibiscus shares rose two sen or 1.77% to close at RM1.15 yesterday. Trading of the stock was earlier halted from 9am to 10am to make way for the announcement. In the past 12 months, the stock has climbed over 28%.