SHARES in EnQuest, the North Sea-focused oil and gas company, dropped nearly 12 per cent after it highlighted the impact of severe weather on production at a major field west of Shetland.

The company said extremely cold weather caused it shut down the giant Kraken field in early March, leading it to undertake maintenance work which had been scheduled to take place in April.

EnQuest pumped an average of 21,431 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from Kraken in the four months to April 30, which it said was in line with expectations. Average production was greater than 36,000 barrels excluding the shutdown, it added.

Kraken, which EnQuest has developed with Cairn Energy, came into production last June, having overcome significant teething problems. After production from the heavy oil field initially came in below target, production was ramped up to 50,000 barrels per day during the first two months of the year. Across the group, EnQuest reported average production of 56,077 Boepd (barrels of oil equivalent) in the four months to the end of April, up 48.1 per cent on last year. It reaffirmed full range production guidance of 50,000 to 58,000 Boepd.

Chief executive Amjad Bseisu said: “Production performance has been in line with expectations, underpinning our confidence in delivering a material increase in production in 2018.” Shares closed down 4.95p or 37.1p.