engineering

Sullom Voe Terminal

Sullom Voe Terminal is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sullom Voe Terminal rather than just read about it. In short: The Sullom Voe Terminal (Shaetlan pronunciation: [ˈsuləm voː] SOO-ləm-voh) is an oil and gas terminal at Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. It handles production from oilfields in the North Sea and East Shetland Basin and stores oil before it is transported by tanker.

Key takeaways

Sullom Voe Terminal belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sullom Voe Terminal to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sullom Voe Terminal from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Sullom Voe Terminal (Shaetlan pronunciation: [ˈsuləm voː] SOO-ləm-voh) is an oil and gas terminal at Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. It handles production from oilfields in the North Sea and East Shetland Basin and stores oil before it is transported by tanker.

Construction When Shetland was identified as a location to provide pipeline terminal and support facilities for offshore oil installations in the northern North Sea, corporations involved had expected to each build their own terminal facilities. However, wishing to minimize the negative impacts of the industry, the Shetland Islands Council, with power granted to it by the UK Parliament in the 1974 Zetland County Council Act, was able to contain all pipeline terminal facilities at the Sullom Voe site. Sullom Voe Terminal was built between 1975 and 1981. 6,000 people were employed during construction. They were housed in temporary accommodation, including the former car ferry TEV Rangatira. The first oil was received at 18:40 on 25 November 1978 via the Brent pipeline. At 12:30 on 3 December 1978, the first oil from the Ninian pipeline was received. The Scatsta Airport to the south re-opened in 1978 to support the building of the terminal. The terminal was officially opened on Saturday 9 May 1981 by Queen Elizabeth II. A bomb was detonated at the power station on the terminal at 12.05pm on the day of the ceremony which was attributed to the IRA by Connor McCarthy. A boiler was damaged but no-one was injured. Despite the bombing the ceremony continued, concluding with the Queen dining aboard Rangatira that evening.

Operation

Sullom Voe Terminal has been owned since its construction by the Ninian and Brent partners. On 1 December 2017 the plant transitioned from long term operator BP to EnQuest. The terminal receives oil through the Brent (TAQA Bratani) and Ninian (EnQuest) pipeline systems. Oil from the Schiehallion oilfield and Foinaven oilfield has been received by the purpose-built Loch Rannoch shuttle tanker since August 1998. In the late 1990s, at the height of North Sea oil, the terminal handled over a quarter of UK petroleum production and around 500 people worked there. Around half are EnQuest workers. A new 22 inches (560 mm) pipeline was laid from the Clair oilfield in 2003–2004, and first oil from the Clair field was received in February 2005. 7 billion barrels (abt 960 million tons) of oil through the SVT achieved in December 2001. By 2008, the terminal had handled almost 8 billion barrels (about 1.1 billion metric tons) of oil. Gas is imported through the West of Shetland pipeline. Some of the gas is used as fuel in the ENGIE operated Sullom Voe power station. The remainder is enriched with LPGs and exported to the Magnus platform for enhanced oil recovery. Due to its isolated position, the site has its own fire brigade. On 3 May 2018 it was reported that both the Brent and Ninian pipelines had to be shut down, halting production from the connecting fields in the East of Shetland basin. The pipelines were shut down due to a "minor fault" found during a routine inspection. The minor fault was reportedly a small oily-water leak in a pipeline. Late on 6 May, EnQuest announced that repair work had been completed, and both the Brent and Ninian pipelines were reopened. On 25 November 2018 the Sullom Voe Terminal reached a milestone 40th anniversary of the first oil production.

Throughput The total throughput of the terminal up to the end of 1997 was 821,773,000 tonnes.

Sullom Voe power station

The gas turbine power station provides electricity for around 43% of the Shetland Islands (since the early 1990s) and the other half comes from the (fuel oil-powered) Lerwick Power Station situated at Gremista. Shetland requires about 50 MWe in the winter. From May 2004 to May 2014 it was operated by the Finnish company Fortum; previous to that it was operated by BP. Since May 2014 it has been operated by Cofely Limited, a GDF SUEZ company. The 100 MWe plant has four 25 MW General Electric Frame 5 gas turbines and is part of a CHP system being built in the late 1970s. The actual power output from the plant is around 80 MWe as each turbine runs at about 18 MW. When the oil terminal was at the height of its production, 70 MWe would be used from five gas turbines by the plant, but less is needed now. It employs around twenty people.

Shetland Gas Plant Sullom Voe is adjacent to the TotalEnergies operated gas facility Shetland Gas Plant, completed in 2014.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sullom Voe Terminal

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sullom Voe Terminal claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sullom Voe Terminal before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sullom Voe Terminal ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sullom Voe Terminal

In research: Sullom Voe Terminal appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sullom Voe Terminal in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sullom Voe Terminal is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1981 establishments in Scotland, BP buildings and structures, Buildings and structures completed in 1981, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sullom Voe Terminal outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sullom Voe Terminal in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sullom Voe Terminal means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sullom Voe Terminal out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sullom Voe Terminal in simple terms?

Why does Sullom Voe Terminal matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sullom Voe Terminal?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sullom Voe Terminal.