Decommissioning Index

Next Section

Public perspective: legacy management An important aspect of the decommissioning process is how the legacy of Britain’s offshore oil and gas infrastructure is managed in the future. Public consultation and confidence Fig: Stakeholder consultation is an important aspect of the decommissioning process As the decommissioning of redundant North Sea oil and gas installations becomes an increasingly important activity for operators in the UKCS, it has the potential to attract significant interest from external audiences, particularly on issues of environmental, social and economic impact. Engaging with these interested parties is a critical element of achieving a successful outcome and although each decommissioning project will have different issues and drivers, operators’ current and past experience of stakeholder dialogue can be analysed to find some common principles and methods. Every decommissioning project involves consultation – with partners, regulators and statutory consultees (in the UK this includes the fishing organisations, primarily Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, SFF, and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, NFFO, and the Joint Nature Conservation Council, JNCC). The experience of recent years, however, suggests that in future, consultation will need to be much wider and take a rather different approach. It is therefore becoming common for some operators to run more extensive stakeholder consultation programmes, especially when derogation is an option. Involving this wider spectrum of stakeholders makes sound business sense. Company reputation is an important commodity and identifying potential conflict and addressing it early is a sound strategy for protecting reputation. It is only through dialogue that different sectors and interest groups can resolve the dilemmas associated with formulating a decommissioning programme, and this will enable a robust solution to be established and endorsed by the regulator. The BERR guidance notes on decommissioning contains information on how stakeholder consultation should be included in the decommissioning programme formulation, including an explanation of how a wide ranging stakeholder dialogue should precede statutory public consultation in certain cases. In addition, Oil & Gas UK has developed the notes: “Guidelines on Stakeholder Engagement for Decommissioning Activities”, which draw on experiences at North West Hutton and Frigg. Effectively these notes (which are available free of charge) utilise Operators’ current and past experiences of stakeholder engagement and consolidate them into some common principles and tools. Click here to download a copy of the Oil & Gas UK “Guidelines on Stakeholder Engagement for Decommissioning Activities”. The key processes involved in the stakeholder dialogue process include the need to:   Identify and prioritise stakeholders; Analyse and map stakeholder interests; Define dialogue strategy; Implement stakeholder engagement plan; Analyse, evaluate and feed-back into decommissioning programme; The report also identifies some of the key themes and issues which are consistently raised by stakeholders through dialogue on North Sea decommissioning, which include: The ‘clean seabed’ principle and no dumping of installations; Concern over material left on the seabed being a hazard for fishermen; Uncertainty about the long term effects of leaving drill cuttings accumulations; Alternative uses of equipment, as opposed to disposal solutions; Concerns over potentially hazardous waste streams; UK employment and regional economic impact aspirations; Long term legacy issues. The following diagram summarises the recommended processes and time scale for a successful stakeholder engagement exercise. Fig: An overview of the Stakeholder Engagement process. Source: Oil & Gas UK “guidelines on stakeholder engagement for decommissioning activities” Other users of the sea: fishing issues Fig: North Sea Fishing Trawler Oil & Gas UK has had a long-term working relationship with fishing organisations, especially the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, SFF and the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, NFFO. There is constructive dialogue to ensure harmonious interaction between the two active users of the North Sea and, often, to provide mutually beneficial services. Discussions in recent years have been held to consider how best to manage the implications of any decommissioning legacy left on the seabed for the long-term. The oil and gas industry currently provides the fishermen with regularly updated information on all seabed inventories to help prevent contact with their operations and a comprehensive compensation scheme to address where incidents do occur. What is needed is a means to extend this into the future and to cover decommissioned sites, where owners have completed their approved programme and moved on. There is great interest in setting up a Fisheries Legacy Trust Company which would address the long-term safety of fishermen and fulfil BERR requirements for a long-term management of the legacy (as the legislation requires owners to retain any residual liability in perpetuity).