Incident halts decom work

Oil giant Shell has confirmed all decommissioning work on the Curlew floating production vessel (FPSO) has been suspended due to an “incident” involving a worker.

The occurrence is understood to have been a “confined space incident” during tank cleaning work two weeks ago.

It has been claimed the situation resulted in a male worker running out of oxygen while in the tank.

Shell said no one was injured.

Augean North Sea Services is carrying

“No one was injured and the incident is being investigated”

out cleaning and waste disposal on the FPSO at the Port of Dundee.

It will be sent to Turkey for scrapping.

The decommissioning contract was due to finish next month, but has now been pushed back to the end of November.

Shell confirmed it had opened an investigation into the incident and that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had been informed.

A Shell spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that work on the Curlew FPSO has been suspended on a precautionary basis. No one was injured and the incident is being investigated.”

Unite the Union claimed the incident highlighted issues around “proper procedures being in place”.