Overview of Sullom Voe Oil Terminal

A large oil terminal which receives numerous oil pipelines from several production platforms in the northern North Sea, the Sullom Voe Oil Terminal is located on Calback Ness in the Delting district of the Shetland Mainland. It occupies a 400-ha (1000-acre) site on the eastern shore of Sullom Voe, 29 miles (46 km) north of Lerwick. The terminal was established in the 1970s to service the North Sea Oil Industry and is operated by BP Exploration Operating Company Ltd on behalf of nearly 30 companies participating in the Brent and Ninian pipeline groups. The first oil was pumped from the Dunlin oilfield to Sullom Voe Terminal through the Brent pipeline on 25th November 1978 and five days later the first oil was shipped out of the terminal by the Shell tanker Donovania. In recent years the average throughput has declined to around 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day (2003), much less than its design capacity of 1.2 million barrels per day. At its peak in the mid-1980s the terminal was visited by up to 672 tankers in a year. Construction involved a workforce of up to 7000, with a staff of around 600 needed thereafter to operate the facility. The Sullom Voe loading and unloading jetties are owned and operated by Shetland Islands Council, with the harbour authority administration buildings are located on Sella Ness, a half-mile (1 km) to the south of the oil terminal.

Oil coming ashore from the Schiehallion, Loyal and Clair Fields from 1998, together with enhanced oil recovery techniques in older fields, will ensure a future for Sullom Voe until at least 2020.

The terminal has a good record for preventing spillage; only one major incident has occurred when, in 1978 only months after opening, the tanker Esso Bernicia collided with one of the jetties and discharged 1400 tonnes of oil which caused much pollution of the surrounding waters.