Union is not satisfied with £900,000 fine for Shell

Oil giant Shell UK was fined a total of £900,000 at Stonehaven Sheriff Court in April, after pleading guilty to breaching health and safety law.

The case follows a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into the deaths of two workers, Sean McCue and Keith Moncrieff, on Shell Expro's Brent Bravo offshore production platform in September 2003.

At an earlier hearing, Shell admitted that it had breached the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 by failing to ensure employees' health and safety, and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 by failing to complete a suitable and sufficient risk assessment.

But professional and technical union Amicus is not satisfied with the fine. "A £900,000 fine represents no deterrent to a company due to announce a quarterly profit in the region of £2.7 billion," said Graham Tran, the union's regional officer for offshore workers.

One of the charges against the company related to its failure to maintain equipment. Amicus reported concerns about equipment maintenance on three Shell offshore platforms, including the Brent Bravo, in March 2003 - but an HSE report published weeks before the fatal accident found no problem with the equipment. Amicus now wants an inquiry into the HSE report.

"We believe a fatal accident inquiry should now take place, so lessons can be learned and questions asked of HSE's equipment inspection protocols," said Tran.