BP planning growth at Shetland oil and gas processing terminal

Operations at a major oil and gas processing plant in Scotland are to be ramped up over the coming months, after BP announced its intention to trigger significant growth at the site. The energy giant has confirmed it wants to bring a host of major projects to its terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland, and this will require a number of changes. Chief among them will be a doubling in the size of the workforce, with about 500 new jobs set to be created, reports Herald Scotland. More than £500 million will need to be invested by BP if it is to bring the Sullom Voe terminal up to scratch in order to achieve its goals. The money will be spent on a huge plant that will be created to sweeten the gas that is produced along with oil at Clair Ridge. If the gas is not sweetened, it would corrode the pipes that transfer it from the Magnus field, which lies east of Shetland. As such, the development is crucial to the company's prospects of continuing to extra gas from the site. Peter Miller, vice-president of BP's North Sea midstream business, which is in control of sites such as Sullom Voe, said: "I can see for the next five, seven, eight years, we will have huge numbers of people employed here." Mr Miller went on to explain that about 500 workers currently go through the gates of the terminal each day in a variety of roles, but this number could feasibly rise to around 1,000 on the back of the investment. Construction and engineering jobs are both picked out as being among those that will be created, and a camp housing 400 people will be built in Shetland to provide accommodation for some. Facilities already in place at the 1,000-acre site are used to ensure oil and gas remain separate, while there are also provisions to store crude before it is taken to market in tankers.