North Sea oil and fuel agency Perenco failing to seal outdated wells, paperwork present

The North Sea’s largest oil and fuel infrastructure firm is risking fires and environmental disasters, specialists have warned, as paperwork reveal it’s failing to plug its ageing oil wells in time and is lacking decommissioning deadlines by as much as a decade.

Final yr, the fossil gasoline agency Perenco confronted controversy after an oil spill from its Poole Harbour operations polluted the Dorset website, which is internationally recognised for its ecological significance. The RSPB reported oiled birds within the water on the largest pure harbour in Europe, which is likely one of the most closely protected areas within the UK. Perenco promised it would never happen again and committed to pay for the harm triggered.

Paperwork launched to the local weather web site Source Material after a freedom of knowledge request reveal the Anglo-French oil group repeatedly missed authorities deadlines to decommission its oil wells for as much as a decade.

The corporate owns 363 offshore wells within the North Sea, and plugging the ageing infrastructure will price as much as £8m for every.

Critics have raised considerations that the corporate has a monetary incentive to delay cleansing up the belongings which are on the finish of their lives. Unplugged wells can leak harmful chemical substances into the water and ambiance, risking air pollution and fires.

The paperwork present 17 wells the place Perenco has both requested a late extension to a decommissioning deadline or missed it. In two of those circumstances, the deadline was missed by greater than a decade. One Perenco properly, north of the Anglia area, was set for shutdown in 2011 however had nonetheless not been absolutely decommissioned by July 2022.

One other, close to the Indefatigable area, was resulting from be deserted by 2009 however was nonetheless not absolutely sealed and dismantled when the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), the federal government physique that regulates decommissioning of wells, set a brand new deadline 11 years later. As of now, it stays unfinished.

In a press release, Perenco mentioned it had reached a brand new settlement with the NSTA to desert them by 2025.

Regulators on the NSTA known as Perenco bosses into a gathering in Aberdeen in 2022 to ask why that they had not been plugging the outdated oil wells. An official wrote: “You agreed to come back again to me with the steps Perenco has taken to forestall recurrence,” asking why the corporate had not closed a properly as promised.

The Perenco oil firm is owned by the billionaire Perrodo family, who’re ranked at No 17 on the Sunday Instances wealthy listing. They get hundreds of millions of pounds a yr in dividends from their UK oilfields. Perenco UK Ltd paid them a complete of £734m in dividends between the start of 2022 and June 2023.

The failures of Perenco to wash up ageing oilfields threat environmental disasters such because the one at Poole Harbour, specialists have mentioned.

David Santillo, a marine scientist on the College of Exeter, instructed Supply Materials: “Harm to the integrity of buildings might vary from a gradual however persistent unfold of oil residues or different poisonous chemical substances to surrounding waters and sediments as much as a extra catastrophic blowout. Containment and cleanup can be virtually unattainable.”

Perenco is the UK’s largest North Sea infrastructure proprietor, with 45 offshore platforms and almost 1,500 miles of pipelines.

Nevertheless, the corporate has been plagued with controversy over the decommissioning of its ageing oilfields. In April this yr, regulators fined it a file £225,000 for discharging 59 tonnes of fuel into the ambiance at a plant on the North Beach. The Well being and Security Govt’s database of penalties and enforcement notices exhibits Perenco is answerable for 15% of North Sea breaches prior to now 5 years, regardless of accounting for about 2% of manufacturing.

In 2022, there was a hearth at one among Perenco’s oil rigs and the NSTA served it with an enforcement notice because it failed to make sure the present process decommissioning actions had been freed from hydrocarbon. Officers mentioned: “This means that your procedures and preparations weren’t appropriate and ample to make sure hydrocarbon-free standing and prevention of dangers to individuals on the set up.”

Perenco has instructed the NSTA that it’s delaying the decommissioning of outdated wells as a way to maximise manufacturing. In 2022 a decommissioning deadline was postponed from July to September. However in August, Perenco mentioned that it wanted to “maximise manufacturing proper now to help the UK financial system” and didn’t have the out there rigs to start out decommissioning till “late 2024”.

Santillo mentioned: “It’s a part of the covenant that authorities and civil society has with the oil and fuel business that they’ll clear up and take away their supplies once they end making their income. In the long run, it’s in regards to the business doing the proper factor.”

A Perenco spokesperson mentioned the corporate had spent greater than £500m on decommissioning since 2009 and its “security file within the North Sea has proven steady and regular enchancment.

“As a consequence, safety-related key efficiency indicators are all trending in the proper route,” he mentioned.

On the corporate’s requests for delays, he mentioned Perenco had a “good, open dialogue” with the regulator, and that decommissioning was typically rescheduled to advertise effectivity.

He added: “On events, Perenco has disagreed with the regulator concerning the optimum scope and phasing of operations, and the regulator has exercised its proper to implement motion.”

He denied Perenco was failing to decommission rigs on time to economize, including: “Every year we spend lots of of hundreds of thousands of kilos diligently stewarding the belongings beneath our care. Our Perenco workforce work tirelessly, 12 months per yr, 24/7, to take care of protected operations and handle responsibly the important nationwide useful resource, offering clear, dependable power from pure fuel for the UK.”