The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued further improvement notices to Shell for the second time in just 18 months, the offshore giant has been accused of breaking yet further safety rules at its St Fergus Gas Terminal in Buchan, North of Peterhead.

The HSE raised further concerns that Shell are not doing enough to prevent ‘major incidents’ at the Gas Terminal, accusing the company of failing to take “all measures necessary” to identify tasks which had the potential to cause a “critical” situation.

The company was told by an HSE representative: “You have failed to adequately identify the safety critical tasks which have potential to initiate, escalate, recover from, or mitigate the consequences of, a major accident at the St Fergus gas plant.”

A spokeswoman for Shell said: “Shell can confirm that it was issued with an improvement notice in relation to the management of safety critical tasks at our gas plant at St Fergus near Peterhead.

“Action is being taken to address the issues raised. The safety of our people and surrounding community remains our primary concern.”

Shell was heavily criticised by safety chiefs in 2013 over fears a major incident could occur and that not enough was being done to protect staff or the environment over methods used to lift materials in areas near equipment filled with gas.

St Fergus Gas Terminal has created tens of thousands of jobs locally since its opening three decades ago, the terminal receives gas from more than 20 fields in the North Sea and processes an average of 20% of the UK’s gas requirements, the first gas at the terminal was received in 1977

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