Sullom Voe Terminal
Encyclopedia
Sullom Voe
Sullom Voe is an inlet between North Mainland and Northmavine on Shetland in Scotland. It is a location of the Sullom Voe oil terminal. The word Voe is from the Old Norse vagr and denotes a small bay or narrow creek...
in the Shetland Islands
Shetland Islands
Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...
of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. It handles production from oilfields in the North Sea
North Sea oil
North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid oil and natural gas, produced from oil reservoirs beneath the North Sea.In the oil industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the area known as "West of Shetland", "the Atlantic Frontier" or "the...
and East Shetland Basin
East Shetland Basin
The East Shetland Basin is a major oil-producing area of the North Sea between Scotland and Norway.Oil produced there is landed at Sullom Voe Terminal in the Shetland Islands.-See also:*Energy policy of the United Kingdom...
. It is not a refinery and stores oil before it is transported by tanker.
Construction
When Shetland was identified as a location to provide pipeline terminal and support facilities for offshore oil installations in the northern North SeaNorth Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, corporations involved had expected to each build their own terminal facilities. However, wishing to minimize the negative impacts of the industry, the Shetland Islands Council
Shetland Islands Council
The Shetland Islands Council is the local authority for Shetland. It was established by the Local Government Act 1973 and is the successor to the former Lerwick Town Council and Zetland County Council...
, with power granted to it by the UK Parliament in the 1974 Zetland County Council Act, was able to contain all pipeline terminal facilities at the Sullom Voe site.
Sullom Voe Terminal was built between 1975 and 1981. 6,000 people were employed during construction. First oil was received at 18:40 on 25 November 1978 via the Brent pipeline
Brent System
The Brent System pipeline transports oil from the North Sea oilfields via Cormorant Alpha to the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland, Scotland. Oil is transported from 20 oilfields, including:* Thistle* Murchison* Hutton* North West Hutton* Dunlin...
. At 12:30 on 3 December 1978, the first oil from the Ninian pipeline
Ninian pipeline
The Ninian Pipeline is a long oil pipeline, which runs from CNR International's Ninian Central platform in North Sea to the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland Islands of Scotland. The pipeline carries crude oil from the Ninian Central, Ninian North and Ninian South, Magnus, South Magnus, Heather,...
was received. The Scatsta Airport
Scatsta Airport
Scatsta Airport , is a commercial airport on Shetland in Scotland located north of Lerwick and southwest of Sullom Voe Terminal.Scatsta Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction as authorised by the licensee...
to the south re-opened in 1978 to support the building of the terminal.
The terminal was officially opened on Saturday 9 May 1981 by Queen Elizabeth II. A bomb blast at the power station on the terminal took place at 12.05pm on the day of the ceremony which was accredited to the IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
. No-one was injured and a boiler was damaged.
Operation
BP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
.
The terminal receives oil through the Brent (Shell/Esso) and Ninian
Ninian pipeline
The Ninian Pipeline is a long oil pipeline, which runs from CNR International's Ninian Central platform in North Sea to the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland Islands of Scotland. The pipeline carries crude oil from the Ninian Central, Ninian North and Ninian South, Magnus, South Magnus, Heather,...
(BP) pipeline systems. Oil from the Schiehallion oilfield
Schiehallion oilfield
The Schiehallion oilfield is a deepwater offshore oilfield approximately west of the Shetland Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Schiehallion and adjacent Loyal field were jointly developed by BP on behalf of the Schiehallion field partners; BP, Shell, Amerada Hess, Murphy Oil, Statoil and...
and Foinaven oilfield
Foinaven oilfield
Foinaven oil field is deepwater oil development approximately west of the Shetland Islands. Together with Schiehallion, Loyal and Clair fields it forms the area generally termed as the West of Shetland.-Field description:...
has been received by the purpose-built Loch Rannoch shuttle tanker
Shuttle tanker
A shuttle tanker is a ship designed for oil transport from an off-shore oil field. It is equipped with off-loading equipment compatible with the oil field in question...
since August 1998. In the late 1990s at the height of North Sea Oil, the terminal handled over a quarter of UK petroleum production and around 500 people worked there. Around half are BP workers. A new 22 inches (558.8 mm) pipeline was laid from the Clair oilfield
Clair oilfield
The Clair oilfield is an oil field on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf located west of Shetland in water depths of up to . It extends over an area of some , covering five licence blocks.-History:...
in 2003-2004, and first oil from the Clair field was received in February 2005. 7 billion barrels (abt 960 million tons) of oil through the SVT achieved in December 2001. (http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/S/scotland_sullom_voe_terminal.pdf) By 2008, the terminal had handled almost 8 billion barrels (abt 1.1 billion metric tons) of oil.
Gas is imported through the West of Shetland pipeline
West of Shetland pipeline
The West of Shetland Pipeline is a pipeline system which transports natural gas from three offshore fields in the West of Shetland area to Sullom Voe Terminal on the Shetland Isles of Scotland.-West of Shetland area:...
. Some of the gas is used as fuel in the Fortum
Fortum
Fortum Oyj is a Finnish publicly listed energy company, which focuses on the Nordic and Baltic countries, Poland and the north-west of Russia. After acquisition of Russian energy company TGC-10 in year 2008, Western Siberia has become an important operating area for Fortum. The head of the company...
operated Sullom Voe power station. The remainder is enriched with LPGs and exported to the Magnus platform for enhanced oil recovery.
Due to its secluded position, the site has its own fire brigade.
Sullom Voe power station
The gas turbineGas turbine
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion chamber in-between....
power station provides electricity for around 43% of the Shetland Islands (since the early 1990s) and the other half comes from the (fuel oil-powered) Lerwick Power Station situated at Gremista. Shetland requires about 50 MWe in the winter. Since May 2004 it has been operated by the Finnish company Fortum
Fortum
Fortum Oyj is a Finnish publicly listed energy company, which focuses on the Nordic and Baltic countries, Poland and the north-west of Russia. After acquisition of Russian energy company TGC-10 in year 2008, Western Siberia has become an important operating area for Fortum. The head of the company...
; previous to that it was operated by BP. The 100 MWe plant has four 25 MW General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
Frame 5 gas turbines and is part of a CHP
Cogeneration
Cogeneration is the use of a heat engine or a power station to simultaneously generate both electricity and useful heat....
system being built in the late 1970s. The actual power output from the plant is around 80 MWe as each turbine runs at about 18 MW. When the oil terminal was at the height of its production, 70 MWe would be used from five gas turbines by the plant, but less is needed now. It employs around twenty people.