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The Future of Oil and Gas Production in Britain The Atlantic Margin The Atlantic Margin is important to the future of the UK's Oil and Gas Industry. Steve Harris, UKOOA's Director of Communications, asked Simon Harbord, Chairman of UKOOA's Environment Committee, to explain the key issues. Where is the Atlantic Margin? The Atlantic Margin is the area north-west of the British Isles, out to the west of Shetland and the Western Isles. It is so called because it forms the transition area between the landmass of Europe, the continental shelf and the Atlantic Ocean. How much oil is there out on this margin? It's been known for many years that this area has potential for oil and gas production, and we think that there could be as much as 1.5 billion barrels of oil out there. That sounds a lot, but in fact it adds up to just about 5% of all UK oil discoveries so far. Discoveries to date aren't on the scale of traditional North Sea fields. When did exploration begin in this region? The answer surprises some people because they think this is a new frontier area for the industry. In fact, we've been exploring out there now for nearly thirty years. In that time we've drilled almost 150 wells that have helped increase our understanding of the area. From all that effort, there are currently just two fields in production - Foinaven, which started producing three years ago, and Schiehallion, which started up in the summer of '98. Both these fields use floating production facilities, the best technology for the conditions. What are the conditions like out there? It can get pretty wild. Of course, our industry is used to harsh weather conditions around the world, from tundra to deserts to typhoon areas, so while it's challenging and expensive to develop technology for the Atlantic Margin, it's something the industry has developed the capability to do over the years. A lot of the exploration areas in the Margin are in deep water, sometimes more than 1000 metres deep. From a drilling standpoint, that means a lot of drill string [the pipe connecting the drill bit to the rig] is used going through water even before the bit starts to penetrate the seabed. Photographs were taken of the Atlantic Margin Seafloor using a deep ocean side-scan sonar. Currents in the area have proved interesting. The lower current of cold water flows to the south-west, while the upper current flows in the opposite direction. There is also a third band of water, the Icelandic Intermediate Water, that sometimes appears between these two layers. So a lot of effort has gone into understanding the stresses that currents can impose on drilling and production equipment suspended through the water column. The seabed is quite interesting, too, because it shows clearly the effects of the last ice age - scour marks caused by icebergs scraping over the seabed when the sea was shallower. In some parts of the Atlantic Margin there are salt mounds, called Darwin mounds, that appear to support quite diverse colonies of marine life. Currently, we think they may have been formed as fluids rich in salts escaped from the seabed. The Oil and Gas Industry has done a lot of work helping to develop an understanding of these interesting structures, and under the Habitats Directive it is likely that they will gain protected status. Surveys have also shown up giant sandwaves, which can be up to 30 metres in height and were apparently created by strong currents that flowed to the north-east. Now, the bottom flow of water moves to the south-west, so it is believed that they were formed in prehistoric times. Why should we explore in the Atlantic Margin? Britain's Oil and Gas Industry has been a real success story since the 1960s. By any measure, it has made a huge and ongoing contribution to our country. It is a benefit we should be striving to maintain, especially since alternative and affordable energy sources are uncertain and the UK industry is highly regulated and environmentally responsible. I've worked in the Industry some 23 years now, and I've seen how it has responded to the challenge of changing circumstances. I'm an environmentalist, and I believe that the UK is one of the best places for an environmentalist to work because oil companies have the means and commitment to make changes for the better. It is a great time to be involved, and I feel privileged that my field of interest is so high up the industry agenda. One of the most striking changes is how we are working together more - there is no competition between companies over environmental issues - and we all want to do better and to be more open about what we do. We are also far more open to public scrutiny and committed to stakeholder consultation. Wider issues like sustainability, social benefits and so on are now clearly recognised as important. Analysing AFEN Research in the laboratories. So, why should we explore the Atlantic Margin? Because developing this industry will help sustain a healthy and productive UK oil and gas sector well into the future. And we can do it without causing significant environmental impact: there are those who might not believe that, but the more work we do on environmental issues, the more I believe it to be true. I guess there's one last point I'd make about why we should continue to explore and produce from the Atlantic Margin. Here in the UK, we are proud of the way we produce oil and gas for the nation. We work in one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. Not every country has such tight controls, and I'd prefer to see production come from the UK than for us to have to import oil produced from areas where environmental controls are not so tight. So how are you managing environmental issues on the Atlantic Margin? We're working with organisations such as the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the Southampton Oceanography Centre and other top research units around the country to ensure both that the Atlantic Margin and its fascinating marine ecology is properly monitored and that our offshore activities have minimum impact. A good example of the way Industry is co-operating is the Atlantic Frontier Environmental Network - or AFEN for short. A few years ago, operators with interests in the Margin saw an opportunity to work with government to take a more co-ordinated approach to managing environmental issues. So we joined with a few bodies - the Department of Trade and Industry, what is now the Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department and the JNCC - to try to describe and understand better the existing environment. That meant we had to understand the key sensitivities and concerns … then we could develop appropriate protection measures. What has AFEN done? Put simply, we've been studying the area's flora and fauna, the coastline and the seabed. The information is used by operators to assess where to explore, how to perform seabed operations and how to route pipelines in order to minimise environmental impact. Where is this information? Is it just held by the Industry and government? No. We recognised early on that the information would be of value to all sorts of people, from local communities to academics. So a group was set up to make sure the knowledge was passed on to all interested parties. This is the Atlantic Frontier Environmental Forum, or AFEN. It has an independent Chairman and representatives from local authorities, wildlife and conservation groups, Government, academia and of course, our industry. What studies has AFEN done? As part of the initial work, 30,000 square kilometres of the seafloor - an area about the size of mainland Scotland - was sampled, photographed and mapped using a deep ocean side-scan sonar. The aim was to view the shape and texture of the seabed, its animals and plants and the physical processes moulding them. By any standards, it was a massive survey. Instead of concentrating on small areas of interest to single operators, an approach so often used by oil companies in the past, we were able to gather information on a very wide area. This approach was so successful that we've started to take the wide-area approach in other parts of the North Sea as well. That survey took two months at sea, and over a year for the various laboratories and institutions to analyse and publish the data. Now the results form the basis for environmental management and sound conservation. What about seabirds and marine mammals? Several oil companies have sponsored a survey, carried out by the Seabirds at Sea Team of the JNCC, which logs sightings of all seabirds, cetaceans and seals. These sightings are entered into a database that is also available to the public. Examples of the findings are that more than 10% of the world's population of guillemots, razorbills, puffins, great skuas and gannets, and more than 1% of kittiwakes and black guillemots, breed in the Atlantic Margin areas. Another programme involves seabed "microphones" which can record whale noises 24 hours a day, all year round and in a wide range of sea conditions. The US military developed this network of microphones, the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System, to track submarines during the Cold War. It is now used to listen for marine mammals, and we are starting to build a picture of the species, their populations and migration routes. What about seismic surveying - doesn't that affect marine life? When we go into a new area to search for oil and gas, we use a technique called seismic surveying. This uses underwater air guns, towed behind a survey ship, which release a 'pop' of compressed air that bounces off the seabed and the underlying rock. Echoes from the 'pop' are recorded by sound detectors and then analysed to create computer-generated images of the rock strata far below the bottom of the sea. There have been concerns that these surveys might disturb marine mammals including seals, whales, dolphins and porpoises. Our research tends to suggest that, while the noise might - in some cases - drive such mammals from the immediate vicinity of the work, it does not cause any lasting damage to them. In fact, due to the differing acoustic sensitivities of sea mammals, some of them may not hear seismic activity at all, in the same way that humans cannot hear the cries of bats, which are theoretically the loudest animals on earth. As a precaution though, we have developed guidelines in co-operation with the JNCC to ensure that seismic activity work is carried out in a way that minimises any disturbance to marine mammals. What about life on the seabed in the Atlantic Margin? The AFEN seabed survey looked at all aspects, including seabed fauna. One aspect that has been causing concern is the reefs of cold water corals and their sensitivity to drilling discharges. Certainly, the cold water corals are quite special, and a lot of effort has been put into researching them. The coral Lophelia pertusa is one that is recognised as particularly important. Seabed fauna, such as Lophelia grows at great depths. Lophelia is a seabed coral that generally grows at great depths in cold and darkness. In some areas off the coast of Norway, Lophelia colonies span several kilometres and are tens of metres high. Further west in the Atlantic Margin, the survey has identified only scattered colonies, each no greater than 10 metres in diameter. However, new evidence has challenged previously held views about the sensitivity and slow-growing nature of Lophelia. Recent surveys of offshore oil and gas platforms in the North Sea have shown colonies of Lophelia actually growing on the structures! Drilling activities could constitute some risk to some Lophelia colonies that may be within a few metres of rigs but we believe this is manageable. The risk arises mainly from the deposition of drill cuttings but, after a site survey, careful rig positioning and management of the drilling process will minimise this. How is the coastline being protected? The Atlantic Margin coastline - the islands, cliffs, and beaches - are rich in wildlife and, in many cases, important sites for breeding sea birds and local fish farms. So we've had to work hard at deciding on suitable strategies to deal with oil if it were spilled from an offshore installation - even though it is unlikely an oil spill would reach the coastline. We've assessed and mapped the coastlines; we've determined the sensitive areas that might need shoreline protection; we've decided where we might install booms to hold spilled oil; and we've made our plans available as a resource to the local authorities. So, all in all you feel that the Industry is in a position to deal well with the challenges posed by the Margin? Let me put it this way. I feel that, as every year goes by, the oil industry is getting better at environmental protection. Fossil fuels will remain a part of the picture for some time yet, and those companies involved in their extraction are serving a market that demands energy to maintain its quality of life. Simply to stop exploring and producing oil in the UK would be to move the production and its benefits to other economies. Our challenge is to produce Britain's reserves responsibly and to be open about environmental issues. We want to engage in constructive dialogue with our critics and ensure that we understand and respond to their concerns. But we must also ensure that the benefits our industry brings are understood too, so that society - our ultimate customer - can make a judgement on the basis of knowledge and understanding. As for the Margin, I'm sure we will continue to research the environment out there. Already, the industry has made great steps in developing its understanding of the area, and we are confident our activities can continue. And while we acknowledge the impacts we make, we are continually improving. I feel that the benefits of exploration and production in the Atlantic Margin far and away outweigh any risks from our activity.