Where there’s blame there’s a claim: £400k cost of crashing oil rig
Stranded platform’s owners meet Coastguard costs
AN oil company has been hit with a £400,000 bill after one of its rigs ran aground on a Hebridean island.
The Transocean Winner struck rocks on the shore of Lewis during a storm last August after breaking free from the tug towing it.
For two weeks the stricken 17,000ton rig, and the oil leaking from it, were monitored constantly.
Eventually it was towed free and continued its journey to a scrapyard in Turkey, where it is now being dismantled.
Now the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has revealed it has
‘It was our intention to recover the cost’
been paid £400,000 by Transocean in settlement of a bill for dealing with the incident.
Last night, a spokeswoman for the MCA said: ‘It was our intention to recover the cost from Transocean. 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, etc. In addition there was the cost of independent salvage advice to the Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention.’
The MCA’s bill comes on top of the almost £17 million known to have been spent so far on recovering the Transocean Winner, including costs for the police and other public services involved in responding to the incident.
Transocean has also paid compensation to local fishermen affected by the incident and donated £120,000 to the community. Half of this is earmarked for Dalmore and Carloway, where the rig grounded, and the rest will go into a fund for island youngsters competing in sport. In Turkey, the rig is being scrapped on a stretch of coastline known locally as Blowtorch Beach after it was carried more than 3,000 miles on the back of a ship.
The North Sea rig was being towed from Norway last summer when it broke free from the tugboat Alp Forward and ran aground at Dalmore Bay, near Carloway.
Two of its four fuel tanks ruptured, spilling around 11,000 gallons of diesel into the sea.
Most of the pollution is believed to have dispersed harmlessly – but the damage suffered by the rig when it grounded meant that it was considered too hazardous to attempt a second tow and it was instead carried to Turkey on the back of the heavy-lifting vessel OHT Hawk. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is probing how it came to run aground.
A spokeswoman for Transocean 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.’
Falling oil prices and dwindling reserves are forcing companies in the North Sea to decommission more rigs, with 42 scrapped worldwide in 2015, compared with 30 in 2014 and nine the previous year.