MP calls for towing gear training

Mr Carmichael said that despite the gear being compulsory on tankers since 1 January 1996, there was no requirement for crews to be trained in its use.

His call comes after a Shetland towing firm and a Norwegian tanker operator joined forces last month to carry out the first successful emergency exercise using a local authority harbour tug and the shuttle tanker Petroatlantic, which serves the Foinaven oil field in the North Atlantic.

Shetland Maritime used the Sullom Voe tug Dunter to transfer a towing wire from the 93,000 ton Petroatlantic in the anchorage at Colgrave Sound, between Yell and Fetlar.

Captain Zander Simpson of Shetland Maritime said the gear was deployed without a hitch and the tug applied a 40 ton tension on the tow wire before it was successfully recovered by the tanker.

The exercise was perhaps the first carried out since 1996, when the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) required all new tankers over 20,000 dwt to be fitted with an emergency towing device at either end of the ship.

The order followed recommendations from the Donaldson Inquiry into the 1993 Braer oil spill, which also recommended the deployment of emergency towing vessels around the UK coastline.

Mr Carmichael, the Westminster coalition government’s deputy chief whip, is currently campaigning within the government for the retention of the four coastguard emergency tugs, which are due to leave service at the end of this month as part of the public spending cutbacks.

The MP said that following the Petroatlantic exercise he would be raising the need for regular towing exercises with shipping minister Mike Penning.

“To have an obligation for putting towing gear on to ships, but not an obligation to train people in its use seems to make no sense, he said. “I shall be raising this with the shipping minister as it looks to me like a small but significant loophole.”

Captain Simpson stressed that while last month’s exercise was an excellent opportunity to test the towing gear in controlled conditions rather than an emergency, the Sullom Voe tugs could not replace the ETVs in a crisis.

He said, “These tugs are only 55 ton bollard pull harbour tugs compared to 140 to 200 ton bollard pull purpose built salvage tugs.”

He added that the exercise had been commissioned by the tanker’s Norwegian operators Teekay Petrojarl Production AS long before the government proposed the removal of the ETVs last winter.

By Pete Bevington