Shutdown as Flotta power fails
(From The Orcadian dated November 16, 2000)

The Flotta oil terminal was shut down on Saturday with all production grinding to a halt after a glitch in a back-up power supply.

The terminal was out of action for several hours until the entire system was rebooted.

But terminal manager Mr Trevor Newton stressed this week that the incident had not been an emergency situation.

He said a faulty switch in a key safety system caused a temporary loss of back-up power. This triggered a complete shutdown just before 10am on Saturday.

“The Flotta terminal is equipped with a sophisticated emergency shutdown system (ESD),” he said.

“This is one of the terminal’s prime safety systems and as such is provided with a back-up power supply. A switching fault between the main and back-up power supplies caused a momentary loss of power to the ESD system. The system is specifically designed under these circumstances to go to its failsafe mode which automatically and safely shuts the plant down and isolates the facility from the offshore pipeline.

“It is a very complex system which controls a whole range of safeguards to ensure the plant is always in its safe operating regime,” he added.

The shutdown in processing closed the isolation valve on the main oil pipeline to Flotta within 30 seconds, isolating the terminal from the offshore pipeline.

Mr Newton said the faulty switch was located immediately and the terminal, operated by Talisman Energy, was back in operation later in the afternoon. He said the event had at least shown that the safety systems at Flotta worked.

“It is a very complex system and is monitoring the entire processing all the time. If you have even a momentary drop in power it moves to failsafe mode and failsafe mode is to initiate plant shutdown,” he said.

“There was no emergency situation whatsoever. It is over five years since we have had to start the plant from cold so to speak and everybody here responded in a very commendable way. They got the plant restarted, followed the procedures and it was done in a very orderly and commendable way.

“The key thing is it was initiated by a momentary loss of power, not by any problems in the plant.”

• A leak in the pipeline from the inshore Beatrice Field, also operated by Talisman, has resulted in the oilfield being closed down. The oilfield, situated in the Moray Firth, is not expected to be back on line until April next year.

The leak led to calls by environmental groups for greater monitoring of pipelines in the industry.

The pipeline serving Flotta is 24 years old but Mr Newton said it had been tested last year by former operators Elf, using a device which scanned the pipe’s condition. “This is not an issue here,” he said. “The pipeline is in very good condition.”

myles.hodnett@orcadian.co.uk