Community Notice - Shell St Fergus Gas Plant
Update on Maintenance Activity - Planned use of Flare
16 April 2021
Dear community members,
I notified in my recent Community Notice (15 April) that we are carrying out planned, routine investment and maintenance work as part of a cycle of major investment in coordination with the pipeline system from the North Sea, and I would like to provide a brief update on this activity, particularly the use of our flare.
We are currently using the elevated flare as we shut down processing at the plant so that we can begin the work safely. We began this yesterday (Thursday 15 April) and we expect to finish use of the flare tomorrow (Saturday 17 April). We are doing what we can to minimise the flaring and the associated smoke. We continue to keep the regulator SEPA informed of our plans.
I apologise for any inconvenience caused by this, and would like to offer reassurance that there is no risk to the local community.
Please contact us if you have any questions or comment. Our contact details are on the plant website.
Kind regards,
Steve Morrice
Plant Manager, Shell St Fergus Gas Plant
Community Notice - Shell St Fergus Gas Plant
Investment and Maintenance
15 April 2021
Dear community members,
I would like to notify residents of St. Fergus of some important, planned investment and maintenance work that Shell U.K. Limited will carry out at the Shell St. Fergus Gas Plant, beginning on 15th April for two months.
You may be aware that a cycle of major investment comes around periodically that requires us to shut down processing at the plant for a few weeks in coordination with the pipeline system from the North Sea including the St Fergus gas plant in Peterhead.
The system down time in April and May is essential so that we, as well as other operators in the North Sea supply system, can complete detailed inspections and significant upgrades as we invest in maintaining the integrity of our plant and the system infrastructure.
At Shell St Fergus we’ll be completing over 25500 hours of work. We’re continuing to work within the Scottish Government guidelines for COVID-19 and have embedded a wide range of measures and mitigations to help keep workers at the site safe and healthy.
Later in May, we will also be carrying out some engineering work on a Carbon Capture and Storage project called Acorn. This is an ambitious energy transition programme which will make use of oil and gas pipelines that are already in place and offshore geology that is suitable for permanently storing carbon dioxide (CO2).
There may be some intermittent noise associated with this work. Please be reassured that we will take measures to minimise the impact, and there is no risk to the local community. We plan to have the maintenance work completed by the end of May.
We also plan to carry out a Module shutdown in June with the possibility of smaller outages in September, we will keep you informed of this too. We are informing the regulator SEPA of our plans.
I hope you can appreciate the need for this important work this year and find the advance notice helpful.
Please contact us if you have any questions or comment. Our notices andcontact details are also on the plant website.
Kind Regards,
Steve Morrice
Plant Manager, Shell St Fergus Gas Plant
