EU offshore oil and gas safety changes must not undermine existing UK regulations:
New EU legislation aimed at harmonising offshore oil and gas safety rules across Europe must not risk undermining the UK’s existing industry-leading safety regulations and endangering investor confidence in the North Sea.
That is the message from Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson as he prepares to undertake a report on behalf of the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee, assessing proposed regulations aiming at ensuring EU-wide safety during offshore oil and gas prospection, exploration and production activities.
The legislative proposal will begin its journey through the European Parliament in July and Stevenson aims to ensure that the highest standards of environmental protection are adhered to across the EU without compromising the UK’s current capacities to prevent any major environmental disaster occurring within UK territorial waters.
Speaking from Brussels today, Mr Stevenson commented:
‘With the exploration and production of oil and gas increasingly taking place in deep offshore waters, in more complex geographical and geological environments, there is a need to minimise the risks of a major accident occurring within the EU.
‘The EU currently has no sector-specific offshore oil and gas legislation and there are considerable disparities and fragmentation amongst other Member States’ laws and practices applying to offshore activities. This new legislation seeks to raise standards of control of major hazard risk throughout the European Union, and that is no bad thing in itself.’
Struan continued:
‘However, the legislation as it currently stands risks impacting the UK’s world class oil and gas safety regime detrimentally as the new rules, if passed, will force Member States to repeal key parts of their own domestic law and replace it with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ piece of EU legislation.
‘Moreover, the unrealistic timescale and interpretative guidance proposed by the Commission would force the UK oil and gas industry to devote untold resources in service of the legislation’s implementation, causing serious project delays and consequences for the economy, investment, jobs and security of energy supply.
Struan concluded:
‘The recent gas leak at the Elgin Platform, 150 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, demonstrated that the UK already has the gold standard when it comes to the safety of offshore oil and gas production. All 238 staff at the platform were evacuated quickly and the leak was thankfully stopped with minimal environmental impact.
‘Initiatives to minimise the threat of a major offshore accident in EU waters are to be welcomed, but the Commission must realise that stringent proposals for EU-level action could weaken the UK’s offshore oil and gas regime and impact its ability safely to direct the exploitation of its own energy resources.’
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