They are, however, confident that measures taken to contain Tuesday's spillage will avert a repeat of the recent contamination of stretches of coastline along the Moray Firth.

Platform operators Talisman Energy UK (Ltd) notified coastguards and Highland Council about the latest incident, believed to have involved 0.16 of a tonne of crude oil.

They have since been keeping a close eye on the situation, given that the previous leak took a week to start washing ashore in the form of tar balls.

Campbell Stewart, the council's area roads and community works manager, mobilised the authority's emergency response after being informed about the spill on Wednesday morning.

He said: "It's early days yet. Talisman and the coastguards are keeping tabs on it and we've been given an early heads-up that there is a chance pollution may end up on our coastline.

"On the last occasion, it took about a week before it came ashore. We're obviously hoping we don't get any pollution this time but, if we do, we'll be prepared for it."

Mr Stewart urged members of the public to be vigilant and get in touch if they spot anything suspicious.

Highland Council co-ordinated a four day clean-up operation at the start of last month after tar balls washed up on beaches stretching from Freswick down the coast to Brora. Two skips of waste weighing 20 tonnes were removed from Sinclair's Bay north of Wick, where most of the pollution appeared to concentrate. Initial fears that there could be major seabird casualties proved unfounded with just a few reports of oiled birds coming to grief.

A similar clean-up was mounted shortly afterwards after tar balls were discovered on the south Moray coast between Whitehills and Buckie.

Canadian-owned Talisman helped out in both exercises and pledged to meet all the costs. They have started a probe into the second spillage in just over a month from their platform.

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