Environment Report 2013

ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2013

1. Foreword Welcome to the Oil & Gas UK Environment Report 2013 . The report provides information on the key environmental challenges facing the upstreamoil and gas industry and how these are addressed through Oil &Gas UK, together with trend data on some of the keymetrics of environmental performance. Data up to the end of 2012 are included, as this is the latest full data set. The industry andgovernment share theobjectiveofmaximising the recovery of hydrocarbons fromtheUKContinental Shelf (UKCS) to help provide secure and affordable energy supplies. TheUKCS is, however, amature hydrocarbon basin and the continued production of oil and gas from depleted reservoirs requires greater energy input, increased use of chemicals and the management of larger volumes of produced water. The emissions and discharges resulting from these increases must be effectivelymanaged; the trend data for the industry as a whole illustrates that this is the case, with levels of themost important metrics either decreasing or remaining relatively constant. The upstream oil and gas industry is heavily regulated. All activities, emissions and discharges require government approval, authorisation or permit and helping member companies understand andmaintain compliance with existing and new initiatives from the European Union and OSPAR 1 is a key function of Oil & Gas UK. It is essential that new legislation is fit for purpose and is based upon a sound understanding of the issues it intends to regulate, and in that pursuit, Oil & Gas UK provided responses to several relevant government consultations during the report period on behalf of industry. Oil and chemical spills that reach the marine environment are of concern to stakeholders and the number of spills, when reported with no supporting information, can appear significant. The numbers are high because all spillages, however small, are reportable. Toput thedata in context, the industry produced some 41,482,257 tonnes of oil and gas during 2012 and in doing so used approximately 324,000 tonnes of chemicals. The spills for 2012 were 86 tonnes of oil and 306 tonnes of chemicals – a very small percentage. The industry is not complacent about any spill, however small, and all incidents are analysed to determine their cause. Since theMacondooil spill incident in theGulf ofMexicoduring2010, theUKoffshoreoil andgas sector, incollaboration with regulators, has extensively reviewed theprevention and response capability inplace. Current capabilitywas found to be essentially robust and provides an effective response. Some enhancements were identified and these have been implemented, for example, by constructing a subsea well capping device. An element of this review was to understand whether a significant oil release could occur from wells on production installations. Any well that does not naturally flowoil to the surface, that is it requires assistance to flow, does not have the potential to spill oil. An analysis of the status of all platformwells (provided in an appendix to this report) shows that from the inventory of 5,121 platform wells only 21 are capable of flow rates that could result in a significant oil spill, allowing appropriate preventative and control measures to be put in place. This Environment Report 2013 is the first to be published in this form and will be developed and expanded to include more information in subsequent issues. To help improve and add value to the publication we welcome comments and questions from all stakeholders. Please address these to Mick Borwell, environmental issues director, on mborwell@oilandgasuk.co.uk.

Mick Borwell Environmental Issues Director, Oil &Gas UK

1 OSPAR is the Oslo and Paris Convention for the protection of the marine environment of the north east Atlantic. See www.ospar.org

page 5