Finance chief wants less volatility

The SIC’s finances are in good shape, a meeting of the council heard today.

Finance chief James Gray told members that “barring big changes” in the stock market before Monday, the council has roughly £200 million in its reserves. This is comfortably above the base of £150 million, which is deemed to be the minimum required.

Mr Gray also said the council planned to move to a new investment strategy. This, he said, would be “more prudent” and “less volatile” than the one they had previously.

Meanwhile the council agreed four tugs are to be retained at Sullom Voe for the foreseeable future.

This follows a recommendation from the harbour board, which urged that the service should not be reduced to three tugs. The harbour board wanted a previous decision to implement three-tug berthing, taken in 2006, to be suspended, pending a review of towage arrangements at the port.

This was unanimously agreed.

A formal risk assessment of three-tug berthing was done in 2010, and it was shown then that risks to the tanker berthing operation would increase.

Since the BP Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico that year, the level of acceptable risk has reduced. A full review of operations will be carried out, considering the safety of the models of tugs and their cost.