Gas plant flare is lit, but deadline missed

Petrofac may be able to breathe a sigh of relief with the first activity of the flare signalling that Total’s Shetland Gas Plant should soon become operational.
The site has been hit by heavy delays during construction with the original deadline being missed by over a year but the flare was lit for the first time at Hogmanay.

Petrofac had previously announced that they expected gas to be coming into the site before the end of 2015, and though gas was employed in the use of the flare this deadline has been narrowly missed.

This is because the flare activity at the Sullom Voe plant was merely a test operation.

It was hoped that gas from the Laggan-Tormore field on the west of Shetland would be coming into the site in time for the new year deadline, but instead the flare activity seen at the site on Thursday was gas from the Alwyn field in the North Sea.

This was used in order to clear the pipelines of nitrogen before gas from Laggan-Tormore could safely be taken in.