Production resumes at UK North Sea Buzzard oilfield-operator

LONDON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Production has resumed at Britain's North Sea Buzzard oilfield, the field's operator said in a statement on Tuesday, the latest phase of the stuttering return of one of the key streams underpinning Brent oil futures.

"Production has resumed following a brief outage yesterday night, Monday 8 September, and ramp-up will continue over the coming days," Calgary-based Nexen (KSE: 005720.KS - news) said. Nexen was bought by China's CNOOC (HKSE: 0883.HK - news) last year.

Since returning from summer maintenance in late August the 200,000 barrel-per-day field has gone through a number of shutdowns and restarts.

Buzzard is closely watched by oil traders worldwide as it is the biggest contributor to the Forties oil stream, the largest of the four benchmark crudes that are the physical supply behind international benchmark Brent crude oil futures. (Reporting by David Sheppard and Claire Milhench; editing by Keiron Henderson)