Buncefield companies fined £9 million

Oil giant Total and four other companies have been handed huge fines by St Albans Crown Court over their role in an explosion at the Buncefield oil depot.

Total was fined £6.2 million for its involvement in the explosion at the facility, a joint venture with Chevron, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd (HOSL).

HSOL was separately fined £2.45 million. The other companies fined were Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd, TAV Engineering Ltd and British Pipeline Agency Ltd.

The judge, Sir David Calvert-Smith, said: "The failures which led in particular to the explosion were failures which could have combined to produce these consequences at almost any hour of any day.

"The fact that they did so at 6.01 on a Sunday morning was little short of miraculous. So too was the fact that not one of the few people on the site or in the surrounding area on that Sunday morning lost their lives."

The blast occurred when a huge vapour cloud from the spillage of petrol from the top of a storage tank ignited. It caused widespread damage to the area north of London and injured 43 people. The 2005 explosion resulted in Europe's biggest peacetime fire.