With replacement work underway, restart of TotalEnergies’ UK gas plant anticipated in fortnight’s time

France’s energy giant TotalEnergies is continuing its investigation into the failure of a heating system section at a gas plant on the north coast of the main island of the Shetland Isles that takes in gas from offshore fields on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). The plant is expected to come back online in two weeks.

After the failure of a heating medium system section resulted in a release of steam, TotalEnergies shut down its onshore Shetland Gas Plant, which is part of the giant West of Shetland project, last week and started an investigation into the incident.

The French player’s joint venture partner in the Greater Laggan Area (GLA) and co-owner of the Shetland Gas Plant, Kistos, said in an update on the recent shutdown of the plant that TotalEnergies was continuing to investigate the cause of the heating medium system failure.

Simultaneously, the oil major has started work to replace the failed section. Kistos underlines that both workstreams need to be completed to ensure the safe restart of the facility, which the firm expects to occur in the next two weeks.

While highlighting that it remains in regular contact with the operator and will provide further updates as appropriate, Kistos confirmed that its average production in 2023 was still expected to be within the previously guided range of 8,500 – 10,500 boe/d.

This plant is part of TotalEnergies’ West of Shetland gas project, covering the producing Greater Laggan Area (GLA) fields – Laggan, Tormore, Edradour, and Glenlivet gas fields – and the undeveloped Glendronach gas field, which are located up to 125 km northwest of the Shetland Islands. 

The onshore gas plant was originally built to process gas from the Laggan–Tormore fields and supplies around 8% of the UK’s TotalEnergies gas consumption, representing enough gas for two million households.