Pete Bevington

12 October, 2009

OIL company BP has launched an inquiry after its shuttle tanker Loch Rannoch collided with the floating platform at the Schiehallion oil field, west of Shetland.

Schiehallion has shut down production while a team of engineers travel north to inspect the damage to the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

The Loch Rannoch has returned to Sullom Voe oil terminal where a separate investigations team is looking into what may have caused the accident.

The terminal will lose business with the shutdown, and the company said they did not know how long it would take to start operations again.

However a BP spokesman yesterday (Sunday) dismissed suggestions that it could take up to six months.

The incident happened last Thursday evening when the Loch Rannoch approached the FPSO to carry out a routine offloading operation.

“For reasons we don’t know at this stage the front of the Loch Rannoch made contact with an area at the rear of the Schiehallion FPSO,” the spokesman said.

The tanker did not actually touch the FPSO itself, but damaged a reel holding the flexible pipe through which crude oil is transferred. “The two vessels are undamaged and there were no oil spills, but there was some damage to the reel,” he said.

“As a precaution we have shut down production and we have an investigation team looking into the cause of the accident. That will centre mainly around the Loch Rannoch.

“A separate engineering team will be on the Schiehallion FPSO to assess the damage to the reel and design a plan for how we get that fixed and back into operation. We can’t make any estimate of how long that will take.”