Oil and gas super major, Royal Dutch Shell, has been fined by UK courts over a North Sea oil spill back in 2011.

The company was charged over the spill Friday (20th Nov), after pleading guilty to the charges at a hearing, held at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.

Today the same court fined Shell UK, GB£22,500 (US$31,000), over the oil spill.

Commenting after the hearing, Shell Upsteam Director, Paul Goodfellow, said: “We deeply regret the Gannet spill and accept the fine which has been handed down to us.”

“We know that no spill is acceptable. Safety is at the heart of our operations and following this incident, a comprehensive review of our North Sea pipeline system was conducted.”

“We have learnt lessons from this review and have applied them across our UK upstream operations.”

Gannet Oil Spil

The oil spill occurred in the area around the Gannet North Sea oil platform, located 113 miles (180km) offshore Aberdeen, in 2011.   

The leak originated from a subsea pipeline, spilling over 200 tonnes of oil into the central North Sea. 

Shell successfully shutdown the pipeline, stopping the leak, however rupturing a second pipeline in the process causing a second leak, that alone spilled at a rate of 80 gallons of oil per day.