Emissions reduced at UK’s offshore oil and gas industry

Specifically, the total GHG emission in UK upstream reduced by 1% in 2016. Albeit the increased production, the decommission of older turbine technologies, combined with new energy efficient installations, resulted in the reduction of emissions.

Since 2013, CO2 emissions decreased to 21,ooo tones per million barrels. In addition, production efficiency rose from 60% in 2012 to 73% in 2016.

The overall production of gas continued its fall since 2014, as new installations have been discovered, which allow more efficiency, compared to older technologies, which are now being decommissioned.

As far as oil is concerned, 2,000 tonnes were discharged to the sea with produced water.

In 2016, 520 unplanned releases of oil and chemicals were noted. Of these, 287 were unplanned releases of 115 tonnes of oil.

The average amount of oil released was 0.4 tonnes in 2016, compared to 0.6 tonnes from 2010 to 2016.

The amount of produced water released in the sea in 2016 was reduced by 6%, mostly because most of the water was reinjected in the subsurface.

Reinjected water increased almost 30% in 2015, when it peaked, because the companies adopt new technologies to protect the marine environment.

Moreover, the water waste in UK upstream reduced by 20% in 2016, due to reduced operational weight.

Additionally, 163 tonnes of chemicals were discharged to the sea. The rise in the production caused a slight increase of chemicals discharge, however this amount is lower that the 5% rise in production, something that indicates effective management.

Out of the total amount of chemicals discharged, 72% were classified that Pose Little or No Risk, with only 6% classified as carrying a substitution warning.

The unplanned chemical releases amount to less than 0.1% of the total number of chemicals used and 0.25% of the chemicals that were discharged on purpose, under permit.

Finally, in 2016, the total amount of chemicals per release was 1.1 tonnes, in comparison to 2.3 tonnes from 2010 to 2016.

You can see the full report by Oil and Gas UK, in the PDF below