Gas leak on Shell oil platform risked causing explosion
Dozens of workers were flown off Brent Charlie during the incident on May 19.
A gas leak that forced the evacuation of a North Sea oil platform risked causing an explosion, safety watchdogs say.
Dozens of workers were flown off Brent Charlie during the incident on May 19.
The leak of flammable gas from what the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) described as "safety critical pipework" risked causing a fire or an explosion.
Brent Charlie was shut down while engineers identified and isolated the source of the leak.
The HSE issued Shell with a safety notice ordering it to fix the problem and the platform 115 miles north east of Shetland remains out of action.
Production is likely to restart later this month, it is understood.
A Shell spokeswoman said: "We received a notice on May 27 in relation to pipe work integrity on our Brent Charlie installation in the northern North Sea.
"We continue to work through the necessary actions required to enable safe restart of the installation."