Offshore Industry Thematic Assessment

Extraction of oil and gas and carbon dioxide storage

Table A.1: Trends in oil and gas activities; exploration, production and decommissioning

Extraction of oil and gas, including infrastructure [Extraction of non-living resources]

Region I

Iceland, Denmark, and Norway have activities in Region I.

Two areas on the Icelandic continental shelf are thought to have potential for commercial accumulations of oil and gas. However, there are currently no active licences or oil and gas activity in Icelandic waters.   

So far five licences have been granted in the waters north-east of Greenland. Exploration drilling has been performed in waters outside the OSPAR area. There are presently no plans for activity on the Faroe Islands.

In the Norwegian part of Region I, there are activities both in the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. New gas infrastructure has been established in the northern part of the Norwegian Sea: the Aasta Hansteen field, which started production in 2018, and the gas pipeline Polarled. There are currently two fields in production in the Barents Sea, namely Snøhvit and Goliat, and a third, Johan Castberg, is under development, and production will start in 2023. In 2021 an impact assessment programme for the development of the Wisting discovery in the Hoop area of the Barents Sea, was submitted. The increase in activity in the Barents sea is, however, expected to be counteracted by decreasing activity, and ultimately the decommissioning of mature fields, in the Norwegian sea. The trend towards 2030 is therefore expected to be stable. According to reported data, activity and discharges in Region I can also be regarded as having been stable since QSR 2010.

Region II

Region II has more oil and gas development than any other OSPAR Region, with exploration and production occurring in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Exploration and production have been carried out in this Region since the early 1960’s. The major oil developments have been in the northern part of the North Sea in the United Kingdom, Norwegian, and Danish sectors. Gas deposits are exploited mainly in the southern regions of the United Kingdom, Dutch, and Danish sectors, as well as in Norwegian waters. There are a limited number of gas and oil production platforms in the Wadden Sea (Germany). Seismic surveys covering large areas of the United Kingdom waters in Region II were undertaken in 2015 and 2016. However, significant change in activity trends is not expected. As Region II has the longest history of oil and gas development and the most mature oil and gas fields, many of the activities that caused impacts during the earlier years of development up until the 1990’s have ceased and the main concerns now relate to impacts from historical cuttings piles and the discharge of produced water.

Region III

Exploration drilling in Region III has been undertaken in the Celtic Seas since 1969, with oil production starting in 1985. The region where most oil and gas development occurs is dominated by relatively shallow bays in three separated sea areas (Celtic, Irish and Malin Seas). Most of the production facilities and pipelines are situated in the Irish Sea, in particular around Liverpool and Morecambe Bay off the English coast. Production of gas from the Kinsale area gas fields, located off Cork and the only production facilities in the Celtic Seas, ceased in 2020 and the facilities are currently being decommissioned.

Region IV

Region IV has potential for oil exploitation in the sedimentary basins in the inner south-eastern part of the Bay of Biscay. The coastal plains of Aquitaine (France) and the Northern coast of Spain have historically been exploited, and Spain operates a few installations on the shelf. There is also gas production in the Gulf of Cadiz, with a pipeline to the shore.

Region V

Exploration and development activities within Region V, the Wider Atlantic, have been limited:  only one installation is reported to contribute to emissions and discharges.

Table A.2: Distribution of oil and gas installations in the OSPAR area

¹ Including subsea infrastructure and derogated installations

² Discrepancy with installation co-ordinates is currently being investigated

Society’s needs for energy and stable economies are both drivers for the extraction of oil and gas.

Environmental pressures can occur throughout the lifecycle of oil and gas activities and can arise from the discharge of produced water, oil, chemicals, drilling muds and cuttings, the physical impact from the placement and removal of installations and pipelines, noise from seismic surveys and drilling, light emitted from the installations, and atmospheric emissions.

Exploration includes seismic surveys and the drilling of exploratory and appraisal wells. Production includes the drilling of production and injection wells and the construction, placement, and operation of infrastructure to produce oil and gas. Decommissioning, the final phase of an oil and gas field when the production cycle comes to an end, involves activities such as the plugging of wells and the removal of infrastructure. 

The production of hydrocarbons decreased by 28% over the ten-year period from 2009 to 2019, though production increased from 2014 to 2016 by approximately 17% before levelling off. The number of installations with emissions and discharges reported in the OSPAR Maritime Area was the same in 2019 as in 2009 (676). The same period, however, saw a 14% increase in the number of reported installations up to a maximum of 766 installations in 2015, followed by a 12% decline to 676 installations by 2019. This decline was largely due to increasing cessation of production and decommissioning following the drop in the oil price in 2014. Since OSPAR Decision 98/3 on the disposal of disused offshore installations was adopted, approximately 170 installations have been decommissioned, of which 10 were granted derogations.

Drilling activity, despite the downturn during 2013 to 2015, increased over the period from 382 wells drilled in 2011 to 443 wells drilled in 2019, with a peak of 490 wells drilled in 2017. Most of these wells were development wells rather than exploration and appraisal wells. There has been a decline in drilling activity in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Denmark, while activity in Norway and the United Kingdom has remained relatively stable over the period with some annual variation.

The declining trend in production is expected to continue. As older installations reach their end-of-life, it is anticipated that the decommissioning activity will increase in the coming decade.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (decarbonisation) of oil and gas production is increasingly gaining focus, and the electrification of oil and gas installations from an onshore grid or from renewable sources is likely to gain traction.

Carbon capture and storage in sub-seabed geological structures (carbon dioxide storage)

Society’s need to mitigate the effects of climate change is the main driver for carbon capture and storage.

Carbon dioxide capture and geological storage is a bridging technology that will contribute to mitigating climate change. It consists of the capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from industrial installations, its transport to a storage site and its injection into a suitable underground geological formation for the purposes of permanent storage.

Storage of carbon dioxide in geological formations including depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers is an emerging offshore activity. There are two large-scale carbon dioxide storage projects currently operating in the OSPAR Maritime Area (Sleipner and Snøhvit in Norway). A number of new project proposals are at various stages of development including the Greensand project in Denmark, the Porthos and Aramis project in the Netherlands, the Longship project in Norway, and the Acorn, Northern Endurance and HyNet North West projects in the United Kingdom.  

According to NEAES S12.03, OSPAR will by 2024 review the results of the monitoring undertaken in relation to carbon dioxide storage in order to assess whether the monitoring techniques deployed are adequate to demonstrate that carbon dioxide streams are retained permanently in the storage complex. By 2026, OSPAR will evaluate the effectiveness of OSPAR measures to ensure that carbon dioxide streams are retained permanently in the storage complex and will not lead to any significant adverse consequences for the marine environment, human health and other legitimate uses of the maritime area.