The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Transocean pays £400k bill for Coastguard help
Final cost of rig incident could be well over £20m
Coastguards have finally been paid their £400,000 bill for dealing with an oil rig which ran aground in the Outer Hebrides last year.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency's (MCA) costs come on top of almost £17million known to have been spent so far recovering the 17,000-tonne Transocean Winner, with the final bill expected to exceed £20million.
The platform grounded on Lewis during a storm on August 8 and remained there for two weeks before it was towed free.
In January, the MCA submitted its £400,000 bill to Transocean. A spokeswoman for the agency said that its costs for responding to the incident had now been paid.
“Our costs were in the region of £400,000. It was our intention to recover the cost from Transocean and the MCA submitted a claim accordingly, which has now been paid in full,” she said.
“It included things like staffing costs and aerial costs.
“Within the aerial costs are surveillance flights and the helicopter flights to move people onto the grounded rig.
“Staff costs are just that, hours, accommodation and the like. In addition there was the cost of independent salvage advice to the secretary of state's representative Maritime and Salvage.” However the bill did not include the services of the police and other public bodies involved in responding to the grounding. The operation to recover the rig has already cost Transocean £17million, according to a previous financial statement, but that only covers the cost to September 30.
It is likely the bill will have greatly increased because the rig only arrived in Turkey where it was scrapped on November 1, more than a month after the end of the third quarter reporting period by Transocean.
Despite requests, a spokeswoman for Transocean failed to reveal the total cost of the salvage, but said: “Transocean appreciates all of those who provided assistance last summer, most especially the Isle of Lewis residents, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the secretary of state's representative for maritime salvage and intervention and the local communities.
“The exclusion zone at Dalmore beach was lifted in October 2016. Transocean continues to conduct regular surveys and inspections of the beach and grounding site, where no pollution has been detected.
“We will continue to meet our responsibilities arising out of this incident. Transocean Winner was sold in 2016 for recycling in an environmentally responsible manner and that project was completed early this year.”
“Surveillance flights and copter flights to move people onto the rig”