Shell hit with major fine over UK terminal blast

London – Shell UK Ltd has been ordered by Ipswich Crown Court to pay a total of £1.24 million in fines and costs over the explosion and fire at its Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk in 2008.

The explosion blew the concrete roof off a buffering tank within the plant, hurling concrete and metal debris over a large area and sucking a nearby drain out of the ground. According to experts from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), it was lucky that no one was killed or seriously injured in the February 28 blast.

After investigating the incident HSE and Environment Agency (EA) jointly prosecuted the firm over safety, environmental control and pollution-prevention failures at the plant leading to the explosion.

The court heard the blast happened shortly before 6pm in the plant’s water treatment plant. Ten appliances from Norfolk Fire Service attended the scene and the court heard it was fortunate at the time of the explosion that daytime plant personnel were returning to offices to prepare for shift handovers.

Investigators traced the cause of the explosion to a leak of highly flammable hydrocarbon liquid into a part of the plant responsible for treating waste water before discharging it into the sea.

The leak was caused by the failure of a corroded metal separator vessel, which allowed water contaminated with the highly flammable condensate to enter a concrete storage tank where it was heated by an electric heater. The heater’s elements were exposed within the tank, raising the surface temperature significantly causing the explosion and fire.

Bacton is operated by several energy companies and houses gas processing plants along with the Interconnector system feeding gas between Britain and Europe.

Due to the large quantities of hazardous substances present on the site, Shell Bacton is classified as a top tier site under the Control of Major Accident Hazard (COMAH) regulations.

The court heard that during the incident there was an unauthorised release into the North Sea of 850 tonnes of fire water and fire fighting foam which ought to have been prevented.

Shell UK had failed to close the sea gate until about an hour after the fire started. It also failed to notify the Environment Agency, as required, meaning that valuable advice on environmental protection during the incident or its aftermath was not available to either Shell or the fire service - an emergency response priority first identified in 2004. The delay in notification also meant an assessment of environmental harm was not possible.

At an earlier hearing Shell pleaded guilty to seven charges covering safety, environmental control and pollution-prevention failures at the plant which led to the blast. The company was fined a total of £1million and ordered to pay £242,000 costs.

After sentencing, HSE Inspector Steve Johnson, said: “The fact no-one was seriously hurt in this incident was solely down to good fortune as the company’s internal report acknowledges.

Shell UK neglected basic maintenance leading up to the explosion. Key components had been failing for some years and the company knew this, yet there had been no appreciation of the potential for an incident such as this.

Johnson added that despite clear warnings from its own staff, Shell UK had continued to neglect basic maintenance within parts of the plant and had been operating unsafely for a considerable period of time.

In particular, the HSE expert said Shell had been no attempt to assess the risk that arose from condensate entering the water treatment plant, even though it was not designed to handle highly flammable liquids like condensate.

“The investigation revealed significant failings in the safety management system operating on the plant and hopefully other operators will take note of the outcome of this incident and maybe review their own procedures.”

“Companies must ask the right questions, ’do we understand the risk, can we mitigate the risk and do we own the right information telling us  how effective our systems are?’”

For the Environment Agency, Marcus Sibley, environment manager for Norfolk and Suffolk, said: “We are disappointed that a company such as Shell with its experience in the fuel industry should have operated in this fashion. This is a high risk industry and that is why we expect high standards.

“The explosion could have led to a major environmental disaster as other highly flammable materials were stored nearby.”