Shell fined for Gannet field oil spill (UK)

Oil giant Shell has been fined for an oil leak at the Gannet field in the UK sector of the North Sea.

Shell UK will pay 22.5 thousand pounds for the incident that happened in 2011 at Shell’s Gannet Alpha platform.

More specifically, in August 2011, oil spilled from a subsea pipeline connected to Shell’s Gannet Alpha platform, located 112 miles (180km) east of Aberdeen.

The oil spill was stopped on August 19, 2011 when the relief valves were manually isolated and shut by divers. Afterwards, Shell estimated that a total of 218 tonnes of oil was released to sea during the incident.

In an e-mail sent to Offshore Energy Today, Shell attached a statement by Paul Goodfellow, Shell’s Upstream Director, UK & Ireland, who said: “We deeply regret the Gannet spill and accept the fine which has been handed down to us. We know that no spill is acceptable. Safety is at the heart of our operations and following this incident, a comprehensive review of our North Sea pipeline system was conducted.

Goodfellow said Shell has learnt lessons from the review and has applied them across its UK upstream operations.

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Offshore Energy Today Staff