Environmental Report 1999 Index

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UKOOA's Environmental Commitments During 1998, the Chief Executive Officers of UKOOA member companies made a set of commitments relating to key areas of environmental management. They set goals for the industry, and those developed so far are described below. EEMS Database EEMS is the DTI and industry Environmental Emissions Monitoring System. Administered by UKOOA's Environmental Committee, it is used to store statutory and voluntary environmental data relating to the industry's environmental performance. UKOOA members are committed to: providing and verifying both statutory and non-statutory data for the EEMS database in a timely manner; auditing the database to check for completeness, conformity and the timely acquisition of data; releasing the EEMS data in total for this report and for use by the industry and others. Produced Water Every oil reservoir produces a certain amount of water along with the valuable hydrocarbons. Despite the use of advanced separation and cleaning methods, a very small proportion of the oil remains in the water, which is then discharged to the sea. Over the past few years, the legal limit for oil in produced water has been a monthly average maximum of 40 parts per million (ppm). This is equivalent to 40 millilitres in 1,000 litres or roughly one quarter of a cupful diluted in about 11 bathfuls of water. UKOOA members are committed to: continually seeking to operate our existing operations more efficiently to reduce the oil content of produced water discharged into the marine environment; working proactively with UK and European regulators to ensure that they fully appreciate the economic and technical issues of controlling produced water discharges, and thoroughly understand both the environmental impacts and benefits; achieving a maximum of 30 ppm oil content on a company annual average basis; installing the best available technology on new developments and during facility upgrades, subject to recognition of the economic, technical and practical limitations. Unclassified Chemicals Chemicals are used for a variety of purposes during the offshore production process - many of them to protect the facility or the environment from harm. The use of chemicals is covered by a voluntary agreement, the Offshore Chemical Notification Scheme (OCNS). UKOOA members are committed to: using only classified chemicals offshore from January 1999 maintaining full support for the voluntary OCNS, and encouraging the UK Government to reach a conclusion on the implementation of a mandatory scheme