238 workers had to be evacuated off the 'Elgin' drilling platform, 240km off Aberdeen on the east coast of Scotland.

The rig started leaking natural gas on 25 March and workers had to be evacuated amid fears of an explosion.

The platform was engulfed by a deadly gas cloud, making it too dangerous for emergency teams to return to the platform to extinguish the flare.

Almost 3% of the total output from the North Sea was lost as production on the Elgin, Franklin and West Franklin fields was stopped until the flare on the oil platform extinguished itself almost a week later.

Oil company Total later admitted that problems with the well were first noticed a month earlier, on 25 February.

The peak production capability for the Elgin/Franklin field is 280,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, 175,000 barrels per day condensate and 15.5 million cubic metres of gas per day.