Storage Bin Diageo Collapsed

Friday, November 14 2008

I received the following email from George Rhind this evening: A quick e-mail to say that one of the two huge conical storage bins at the North end of the Port Ellen Maltings, owned by Diageo, collapsed this morning, fortunately without injuring anyone. I did try to get you some pictures but the light was so poor and I couldn't get close enough to take anything worthwhile. Some of the nearby Argyll Community Housing Association houses were evacuated, presumably on the grounds that if one bin has collapsed then the structure of the other one would need to be checked out and it would be a wise precaution to move adjacent tenants until this has been done. The main road into and out of Port Ellen is closed and traffic is being diverted over the single-track road at Emerivale.

Three questions occur to me in the short term:
(a) In the present circumstances, will the Maltings continue to operate?
(b) What about the malt which the Malting supplies to two (or is it three?) other Islay Distilleries?
(c) How soon can we have the main road opened? The Emerivale road is unsuitable for the heavy articulated lorries which regularly come off the CalMac ferry at Port Ellen.

More information will be published when it comes available

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2 comments

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Authored by: George Rhind on Friday, November 14 2008 Storage Bin Diageo Collapsed

Apologies for describing the storage bins as "conical", they are of course cylindical!
I hope that someone out their who is more knowledgeable on the whisky industry than me will be able to spell out what the long term implications of this incident are likely to be.

Authored by: Spirit of Islay on Friday, November 14 2008 Storage Bin Diageo Collapsed

Hi George , Remembering the tours i've done of the maltings , these silos are for the incoming unmalted Barley , Diageo also stores the unmalted stuff at Port Ellen Pier . The Maltd Barley is stored in other bins , of which there are several as each distillery has it own specification for the Malted Barley (Ardbeg 56ppm , Kildalton 50ppm , Caol Ila / Lagavulin 35ppm etc ) . Now regarding distilleries stocks the only one i can say for sure about is my Favourite , Ardbeg . They can store 70 tonnes on site , Each mashing is 4.5 Tonnes , so.....they have enough storage for 15 mashings , which is just over a weeks worth as on wednesday we had Mickey on our weekly chat and someone asked how many mashings are they doing at the moment and he said 13 a week . So the only unknown factor would be , did Ardbeg get a delivery yesterday or were they due one ? they could have a weeks storage or be out of it ! You can wake up now......LOL!

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