By Aileen Robertson

SHELL HAS announced a £350 million investment in its Fife operations, which will safeguard 300 jobs.

Mossmorran, which started up in 1984, was built to last in the region of 20 years and would have been coming to the end of its lifespan, but yesterday’s announcement means the plant will be able to run until at least 2021.

The multi-million pound investment will be shared by Shell’s three linked sites— Mossmorran, St Fergus gas to liquids plant and Braefoot Bay loading terminal—which together employ around 300 people.

During the next five years, contractors will carry out an extensive refitting of pipe work and other infrastructure at the installations.

As well as securing the existing jobs, a further 100 contractors will be employed during the project and apprentices will be taken on to replace workers set to retire. The plant is also getting ready to accept gas from Norway to secure supplies for the future.

John Gallagher, vice-president technical of Shell Exploration and Production in Europe, said he expected Norwegian gas to start being pumped across in September or October.

He said, “There are a couple of last-minute links that need to be connected up. We’re making the last couple of connections on the sea bed in the North Sea.”

Mr Gallagher said Shell still had a commitment to providing renewable energy despite this latest apparent commitment to the use of fossil fuels.

“Shell has made it very, very clear that we have a long-term vision and view to go to a carbon-free economy,” he said.

“We have nevertheless the responsibility to make a transition to a carbon-free economy and while we transition we, the oil and gas industry, have to continue in the short term to pursue economic development of oil and gas.”

He added, “We also would highlight that this is largely a gas-based project and gas is one of the cleanest fossil fuels available to man. In fact the introduction of gas throughout the whole of the UK over the last 30 years was by and large a significant element of the greenhouse gas reduction that we’ve seen in the UK over the last 20 years.”

Chancellor Gordon Brown was at Mossmorran for the announcement. He paid tribute to Shell’s Fife workforce.

He said, “It is you that is responsible for the great success of this project here at Mossmorran and is you that continues to ensure that we have the energy supplies coming in from the North Sea to here so that they are available for our economy.

“What has been achieved in these last 20 and more years is a facility that is world-beating, which has turned out for the British economy a massive supply of energy.

“What is now about to be achieved is not only that we use the British side of the North Sea but the link-up that you have achieved with the Norwegians means a regular supply over these next few years.

“When I was here in 1984 it was said that this facility would last just over 20 years, perhaps 25 years, and that would have meant that it was coming to an end in the next year or two.

“Now with this £350 million investment we can go right through to the 2020s and perhaps even longer than the official date of 2021. Now that’s good for our energy supplies. It’s good also for the Scottish and Fife economy.

“And I was very pleased when I came in this morning to meet some apprentices who have been taken on who can now look forward to a career working for the companies that are based here.

“We can look forward, with a £350 million investment, to more jobs, more apprentices and more opportunities in the years to come while at the same time providing something that is of strategic importance to us in a very insecure and unstable world.

“We are not having to rely on imports from every other part of the world which is unstable.

“I want to thank the workforce—a loyal, dedicated workforce—which has made it possible for the Fife economy to prosper and for energy to come from the North Sea into Fife, Scotland.”