Member Article

Slippery customers at Teesside Gas Plant

Staff at the Teesside Gas Processing Plant found some unusual inhabitants on site during a recent maintenance shut down.

Three European fresh water eels were discovered during the draining of the site’s fire water pond – along with over 50 fish.

Gary Williams, Shift Leader at the Teesside Gas Processing Plant which is operated by px limited, noticed the fish and the job was temporarily halted so the unexpected visitors could be rescued.

With the eels between two and three feet in length the task wasn’t easy, but the slippery customers were successfully caught and moved into large plastic drums, which were aerated using plant air.

After a number of phone calls to different organisations, the Environment Agency gave permission for px staff to return eels and fish – believed to be freshwater dace - into the River Tees.

Phil Rippon Fisheries Technical Specialist for the Environment Agency said: “We are delighted that the staff team at px were diligent enough to catch and preserve these eels and fish, so that they could be returned to their natural environment.

“It wasn’t just a lucky day for the eels in question but also for the environment, as European eel numbers have diminished by almost 95% in the last 20 years. That px contacted us for advice on how and where to release the eels, is of credit to them and has produced a great outcome.”

The female eels – which could be 30 years old – will now likely make the long journey towards the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean. Here, they will spawn and the Larvae – or Leptocephali – will drift back on a 300 day migration to the European coast. As they near Europe, they metamorphose into a second larvae stage where they become transparent ‘glass eels’, enter the estuaries and start swimming upstream.

On encountering freshwater they change again – into elver – which are miniature versions of the adult eels. It is presumed that it was at this stage that they either entered the fire pond via pumping or managed to migrate from the nearby marshes during a period of particularly wet weather.

Nigel Williams, Offsite Facilities Manager with px, said: “We are obviously delighted that we were able to rescue and release the eels and fish that we discovered in the fire water pond. The team deserves a lot of credit for the effort they put into catching them and making sure they were safe and looked after until they could be returned to the wild.”

Stockton based px, operates and maintains Teesside Gas Processing Plant, which processes North Sea gas, producing around 6% of the UK’s requirements.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Dobbie .