Union bosses have said energy service giant Petrofac is to blame for a 15-month delay in building Shetland’s £800million new gas plant.
Last week, Petrofacc – chief contractor for the project – blamed bad weather and industrial action for the hold-up, which has already cost it nearly £300million.
Almost £350million was wiped off Petrofac’s market value after the update and an accompanying profits warning.
The gas plant under construction at Sullom Voe is the key piece of infrastructure for Total’s £3billion Laggan-Tormore gas field west of Shetland.
Work on the site is now expected to be “substantially complete” by mid-June, with the whole project on track for first gas in the third quarter of this year.
When Petrofac was awarded the gas plant contract by Total in 2011, it was estimated it would be complete by the second half of 2014.
According to the GMB and Unite unions, Petrofac has “grossly underestimated” the complexity of the work and had to employ many more people than was originally envisaged.
The company had to charter cruise ships and accommodation barges to house more than 1,000 workers and hire “vast numbers” of coaches to transport them to work, the unions said.
GMB and Unite also accused Petrofac of “an outrageous attack on the workers constructing this highly technical gas plant”.
They said blaming the workforce and the weather was “truly unbelievable”.
A statement from the unions added: “This is the Shetland islands – there are adverse weather conditions all year round.
“Didn’t Petrofac study the historical weather data of the Shetland islands? The Shetland weather seems to come as a surprise to the Petrofac management.”
The unions also said an 850-bed accommodation block that was custom-built for the project housed just one-third of the workforce during peak months, highlighting a lack of foresight by the company.
Petrofac flooded the site with 2,400 workers last summer in a “desperate bid” to get the job finished, GMB and Unite added.
The extra workers forced the firm to charter four accommodation vessels and five cruise ships, with the latest arriving just this week, as well as hotels and coaches for transportation, the unions said.
Accommodation and transport must have cost “millions upon millions of pounds”, the statement said, adding one of the main problems was that managers and supervisors kept changing.
A Petrofac spokesman said: “’We have already publicly acknowledged our shortcomings on the execution of this project.
“We remain committed to an ongoing dialogue with trades unions on site.”
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