PREMIER Oil has delayed the start of production from a giant field West of Shetland again amid what it called unprecedented storm fronts off the islands.

London-based Premier said the expected start of production from the Solan field has slipped to January, from this month.

The company told investors the delay followed stormy weather. This made it difficult to transfer workers between the Solan production platform and the floating accommodation unit they sleep on.

”After a favourable weather period for much of September and October, the West of Shetlands area experienced an unprecedented number of different storm fronts during November and early December,” said Solan.

“This resulted in poor bridge connectivity between the flotel and the Solan platform and a number of lost days. We are continuing to reduce the number of hours required to reach first oil, however we now expect first oil to be in January.”

The statement underlines the challenges firm face operating off Shetland, where the weather can disrupt work schedules repeatedly.

In an update issued last month Premier had said it remained on track to start production from Solan before the end of the year noting that work had progressed well offshore during September and October.

The start of production was originally targeted for the final quarter of 2014 but was delayed amid poor weather conditions and low productivity off Shetland over last winter.

Premier fell deep into the red in the first half after cutting a further $385m off the valuation of the Solan asset to reflect the plunge in the crude price and cost increases.

In February Premier cut the book value of a group of UK fields including Solan by $730m citing the impact of the sharp fall in the oil price since June last year.

Petrofac is set to record losses totalling more than $500 million on a contract to build the Laggan Tormore gas terminal on Shetland, where the oil services giant has been plagued by low productivity and bad weather.