Operations resumed at Sture and Kollsnes after shut-down
November 8, 2018 08:53 CET | Last modified November 8, 2018 15:31 CET
The Sture terminal and the Kollsnes plant resumed operations Thursday afternoon after being shut down in connection with the collision between the frigate KNM Helge Ingstad and the tanker Sola TS at the Sture terminal early Thursday morning.
Also North Sea installations affected by the shut-down of the two onshore plants are gradually starting up again.The captain of the missile frigate did an awesome job saving the ship by running it aground after being struck.
Press release published at 08:27:
Shutting down the Sture terminal
In connection with the collision between the frigate KNM Helge Ingstad and the tanker Sola TS at the Sture terminal in Øygarden Equinor will gradually shut down operations at Sture.
Personnel at Sture without emergency tasks has also been evacuated. The shutdown and evacuation are performed as a precautionary measure.
As an operational consequence of the Sture shut-down also the Kollsnes plant has been shut down. Production at some installations in the Oseberg and Troll areas in the North Sea have also been shut down.
Equinor reported the incident at approx. 04.15 Thursday.
The company is in a dialogue with Norwegian authorities and has mobilized emergency resources to assist the police and the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre.
The initial reports referred to a 'collision' but if you look at the damage it's pretty clear who ran into whom:
Both pictures via The Barents Observer
The first thing I thought of when hearing what the captain had to do was the action of the #3 on the USS Nevada during the Pearl Harbor attack (his captain and executive officer were ashore at the time). Here's the after-action report.
The Nevada was the only one of the battleships to get underway but was torpedoed and bombed to the point it was about to sink and block the harbor channel. The ship's damage control officer was the highest ranking officer aboard and it was he who had gotten the Nevada away from the USS Arizona which was burning from stem to stern.
He then made the decision to run the ship aground to keep it from sinking and trapping the rest of the fleet in the harbor, possibly for months.
The Nevada was so beat up it should have sunk. Any normal boat would have sunk. It should not have been able to get to the shallows.
It was refloated and repaired:
The USS Nevada had a very tough life. (U.S. Navy)
She went on to serve on D-Day off Cherbourg and then to Toulon and finally to Okinawa.
Lt. Commander Francis Thomas was awarded the second highest U.S. decoration, the Navy Cross, kept climbing through the ranks and retired as a rear-admiral. He lived to be 100.
The Nevada was doomed to be a target ship at the first Bikini atoll atomic tests. Two tests were run, first an air burst. The Nevada didn't sink. Then an underwater nuclear detonation. The Nevada didn't sink.
The extremely radioactive ship was hauled back to Pearl Harbor for examination.
It was then towed out to open water for target practice by the battleship Iowa and two other ships.
All together now:
It didn't sink.
The Navy had to send an aerial torpedo to finish it off.
So, when the Norwegian Navy gets the Helge Ingstad refloated and (maybe) patched up there is precedent for further distinguished service.
No nuke practice though, okay?
