SCRABSTER harbour in Caithness had seen oil and gas related traffic reach record levels amid continued high activity levels off Shetland.
The trust that operates the harbour said 19 vessels that were working for oil and gas companies used the port in July. The total tonnage of oil and gas vessels more than doubled to 123,130 tonnes.
The vessels included the giant Island Constructor, which supports work on subsea wells.
The boat is working for BP, which is developing the giant Clair Ridge field West of Shetland and revamping the Schiehalion field in the area. Work on these was advanced before the crude price plunged.
The trust manager Sandy Mackie said: “As the closest mainland port for oil and gas activity off the west of Shetland, and many installations in the northern North Sea, we offer huge benefits.”
The harbour grew sales by 16 per cent annually in the year to March, to a record £2.8 million, helped by a surge in oil and gas related business.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here