Hugh Shaw statement
1930, Friday 09 December 2011
This is a statement by Mr Hugh Shaw, the Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention, appointed by the UK Government to oversee the operation.
“I have been notified by DECC of problems with two linked vessels, the Petrojarl Banff (Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel) and the Apollo Spirit (Floating Storage and Offtake vessel) located 190km East of the Aberdeen coast resulting from last night’s severe weather. The two vessels are operated by Teekay Petrojarl on behalf of the licence holder CNR International.
All 67 persons on board the two vessels have been accounted for and are safe.
The Apollo Spirit, which is storing 96,300 tonnes of oil, has lost tension in one of its eight anchors but remains securely in position. The Banff, which has 4,400 tonnes of crude oil on board, had lost tension in five of its ten anchors. At the height of the storm the vessel moved up to 250 metres from its operational position. The vessel is now stable approximately 70 metres from its original position. The subsea isolation valves have been closed and secured, the maximum volume of the pipelines from the vessel to the isolation valves is approximately 120 tonnes, this includes the export line between the vessels.
There has been no report of pollution and the risk of any spillage at this time is very low. However we are closely monitoring the situation.
An anchor handling vessel is on site and lending support to both vessels. CNR International has mobilised four additional anchor handling tugs to provide further assistance.
DECC has initiated its incident response procedures and is working with all relevant agencies.”