The Aberdeen Press and Journal managed to hit the streets, despite a major problem with its printing press.

An electronics fault caused a press failure part-way through the production run of Monday's issue, but printing finally finished six hours later than normal, at just after 10am.

The fault meant some editions of the paper had to be combined, but it was eventually distributed to all its normal outlets, including Orkney and Shetland.

However some readers did not receive their copy of the paper's new 24-page Energy supplement, but this will now appear with Friday's newspaper.

Management at Aberdeen Journals have apologised for the difficulties - the most serious to have hit the Press and Journal's production in recent years.

They also praised staff and newsagents for ensuring the paper was finally delivered to readers.

Alan Scott, the managing director of Aberdeen Journals, said: "At one stage it looked so serious that we might only have been able to print a 16-page paper instead of the prepared 32 pages.

"Staff worked flat out through the night to tackle whatever happened so that the paper appeared on the streets."

Raymond McRobbie, the assistant managing director of operations, said the fault developed part way through the print and was so serious that a contingency plan to possibly print the paper elsewhere in Scotland was put into play.

He said: "Thankfully, we did not have to do that because we got the press running.

"I must thank everyone for the effort - the drivers, mailroom and press crews - to get the paper out."

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