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Environment: Offshore
Meeting legislative standards is the barest minimum. We believe we can make more of a positive impact if we strive to exceed those requirements. Our record is excellent and continues to improve.
Atmospheric Emissions
We are working hard to keep atmospheric emissions from hydrocarbon production activities to a minimum. We are addressing the climate change challenge by taking part in the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), as well as supporting the implementation of DEFRA's Carbon Reduction Commitment.
Each site has a specific flare reduction strategy, while we strive to continuously reduce emissions from combustion equipment by energy efficiency improvements. We have also set up a database to track all hydrocarbon releases on our operations and introduced more accurate systems for measurement and forecasting of emissions.
Produced Water
Water is naturally present in an oil or gas reservoir. It may also be injected into the reservoir to maintain pressure. As oil reservoirs deplete with maturity, their volumes of water tend to increase. In spite of separation processes, discharged water contains trace amounts of oil.
The quantity of oil being discharged is continuously being reduced each year, thanks to the success of our phased strategy of produced water re-injection. Where we can't re-inject produced water we ensure that we use technology that keeps us well below the legislative limit of 30mg/l, which we imposed as a voluntary target before it became law.
Chemicals
Many different chemicals are used in offshore activities. Before they are used, they are fully tested to determine their environmental impact according to the Harmonised Offshore Chemical Notification Format (HOCNF). Each chemical is also subjected to a pre-screening and hazard assessment process, in order to rank them according to their potential environmental impact and identify hazardous components.
Our strict chemical selection strategy prohibits the use of chemical products containing hazardous components, unless there is no available alternative. Where this is unavoidable, we work closely with our chemical suppliers to promote research and development of alternative products. We have developed a Chemical Strategy which ensures that we always choose the chemicals which pose the least overall environmental risk.
Drill Cuttings
Drilling a well into the rock beneath the seabed results in the generation of ‘drill cuttings’ (much like sawdust from drilling a hole in wood). Drilling also requires the use of ‘drilling mud’, which results in the drill cuttings having residues of drilling mud on them.
Legislation introduced in January 2001, prohibits the disposal of ‘oily’ drill cuttings to the seabed unless they can be treated within strictest discharge limits – however, we were already meeting these legislative requirements before this introduction, thanks to our cuttings re-injection capabilities. Where we can't re-inject cuttings, we make every effort to treat the cuttings offshore, recovering the oil from the mud and re-using within the drilling mud. Only when we can't re-inject or treat offshore do we send the cuttings onshore for processing.
Waste Management
Our company waste management strategy is based on the well-established hierarchy of ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’. Each site is set their own specific waste improvement targets, to drive continuous improvement of their waste performance. Our recycling rates form part of our Key Performance Targets, and we are seeing year-on-year reductions in the percentage of waste going to landfill.
Oil and Chemical Spills
The number and quantities of oil and chemical spilled from our activities in the UK is relatively small and the spills themselves are typically small – less than 0.1 tonne – resulting from short-term one-off events such as hose failures or overflow of drainage systems. We have a policy to report every spill, to carry out an investigation into the cause and where possible to put in place steps to avoid a recurrence.
For further details of our recent environmental performance and future improvement plans and targets, click below to download our latest Offshore Environment Statement.