Total UK has received a £3million fine - the country’s second largest fine for safety breaches for its role in the 2005 explosion in Hertfordshire in the south of England.
Total, and the four other companies that were found recently guilty of safety and environmental breaches for their roles in what has been coined Britain’s largest “peacetime explosion”, had shown a “slackness, inefficiency and a more or less complacent attitude to safety”, according to the judge presiding over the four month hearing.
British Pipeline Agency, Hertfordshire Oil Storage, TAV Engineering and Motherwell Control Systems were also fined, bringing the total fines, including environmental and safety, to £9 million.
Hertfordshire Oil Storage also faced a hefty fine of £1 million over its safety breaches, while TAV Engineering, which had designed a safety switch that failed, was fined £1,000.
But the fines were a fraction of the total cost of the dealing with the disaster, which has, according to the UK”s Health and Safety Executive, reached £1 billion.