Environment Report 2016

4. Environmental Performance Benchmarking Each year Oil & Gas UK carries out a benchmarking exercise for operators reporting data into EEMS to gain an overview of their relative environmental performance in the context of the industry as a whole. The analysis is presented anonymously with each company allocated a letter in each category. The participating companies receive their individual results. A selection of variables from the 2015 EEMS data are benchmarked in this analysis to identify trends. Areas of concerning or promising performance can be identified, with the aim of achieving greater industry-wide emissions efficiency as far as possible. 4.1 Methodology Benchmarking was carried out by grouping EEMS variables by operator, ranking them and assigning a code for each individual graph. The result is a set of graphs where one operator may be ranked A, or first in one category, and Z, or 26th, in another. In this way a single operator’s performance cannot be traced from one graph to another. Each individual operator will be informed of their rankings in each category, without the ability to attribute environmental performance to other companies. Given the varied scale and types of operations on the UKCS, benchmarked rankings may not truly reflect some individual environmental performances, but allow a general understanding to be developed. 4.2 Oil in Produced Water Produced water contains small quantities of naturally-occurring reservoir products. It is sampled on a daily basis offshore and the hydrocarbon content recorded in EEMS. OSPAR Recommendation 2001/1 requires individual installations to have annual average oil in water concentrations of less than 30 mg/l, while their monthly samples must contain less than 100 mg/l 46 . Average oil in water concentration is the result of several factors, which means that those operators with higher values may have more assets, greater production totals and may produce heavier hydrocarbons. This benchmarking, therefore, provides a general picture of industry oil in water performance, but cannot be interpreted as some operators performing better than others.

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The mean oil in produced water concentration across the industry in 2015 was 14.2 mg/l, well below the OSPAR recommended limit of 30 mg/l, but higher than in 2014 due to increased production. See Figure 19 overleaf.

Thirteen of the operators had oil in water concentrations lower than this industry average. The average concentrations range from 0 to 29.48 mg/l for different operators.

46 These limits are specified in The Offshore Petroleum Activities (Oil Pollution Prevention and Control) Regulations 2005 Guidance Notes , available at http://bit.ly/1Qkdhz5

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