eu offshore safety directive implementation and implications for environmental regulation

EU Offshore Safety DirectiveImplementation and Implications

for Environmental Regulation

Derek SawardHead, Environmental Management TeamDECC Energy Development Unit February 2014

EU Conclusions After Macondo

• Industry highly capable but:• Strong safety culture insufficiently embedded throughout the

industry• Lack of transparency and sharing of information

• Some EU regulators (North Sea) best-in-class but:• Fragmentation of regulatory systems• Cooperation is inconsistent• Safety and related environment issues are not coordinated

• Need consistent best practice for safety and environment via formal risk assessment and goal setting system involving:

• Industry• Regulators• Coordination and cooperation amongst regulators, and with non-

EU countries

Source: EU Directorate General for Energy

2EU Offshore Safety DirectiveImplementation and Implications for Environmental Regulation

Directive Objectives


Implementation Measures


Member State Requirements


• Competent Authority (CA) to be formed, integrating relevant safety and environmental issues

• CA to be provided with adequate expert resources

• CA to assess and accept relevant submissions from licensees, operators and owners

• CA to be provided with powers of enforcement to oversee compliance and prevent and investigate major accidents and major environmental incidents

• CAs must cooperate in relation to notifying activities, major accidents and major environmental incidents and emergency response

• CAs must cooperate through EUOAG to raise standards and encourage best practice

• CAs must report major accidents and incidents and overall annual performance to the Commission

The UK Implementation Plan

• DECC and HSE, with support from Defra, the Devolved Authorities, DfT, MCA etc., are working together to deliver the UK implementation plan

• Regular meetings with HSE to consider how to meet the Competent Authority requirements

• Regular meetings with HSE, Defra, DfT and MCA to identify lead authorities for specific articles and to discuss legislative changes

• DECC LED Licensing will be responsible for the licensing and operatorship changes, and DECC OGED will be responsible for the environmental changes

• Gap analysis to assess impact on the DECC licensing and environmental regimes completed, and proposals to fill the gaps are currently being drafted

• HSE will be responsible for implementing the safety requirements

• Defra and the Devolved Authorities will be responsible for amending legislation to implement the changes to the Environmental Liability Directive

• DfT and MCA will be responsible for implementing requirements relating to the External Emergency Response Plan


Main DECC Changes – Licensing

• Directive requires functional separation of DECC LED Licensing and the Competent Authority – and therefore separation from DECC OGED

• DECC LED, including Licensing, is likely to be transferred to a new arms-length body / agency to implement the recommendations of Wood Review

• DECC LED Licensing will have to amend licensing and operatorship processes to meet Directive requirements

• Licence and operatorship applications will have to include safety information, in addition to current requirements relating to technical, financial, and environmental capacity and environmental liability

• The Competent Authority will be a formal consultee in the licence and operatorship application processes

• Operators must be competent to undertake the proposed operations or the Competent Authority will be able to request that they are replaced

• DECC LED Licensing amendments could involve changes to legislation, model clauses or regulatory guidance


Main DECC Changes - Environment


• Design and Major Hazards Reports will include environmental components, similar to some of the information included in EIAs

• Safety and Environmental Management Systems and Safety and Environmentally Critical Elements will be subject to environmental review

• Independently verified well notifications and weekly well operations reports will be subject to environmental review

• Oil Pollution Emergency Plan requirements extended and merged with other aspects of emergency response (Internal Emergency Response Plan)

• Environmental obligations on licensees, operators and owners, and all could be liable for environmental damage

• Improving environmental standards and formulating best practice to be included in work of EU regulators group (EUOAG)

• Transparency and sharing of information via EU-wide reporting system covering environmental incidents and near-misses

• Environmental issues to be included in formal Competent Authority / Industry / Trade Union tripartite consultation

Regulatory Changes – Current Thoughts


• Most of the changes will affect the HSE legislative regime, and offshore safety legislation will be replaced or updated to incorporate Directive requirements

• Defra and the Devolved Authorities will be amending the Environmental Damage Regulations to incorporate the changes detailed in Article 38

• DfT and the MCA have still to confirm whether any legislative changes are necessary, but it seems likely that most of the Directive requirements relating to the External Emergency Response Plan will be implemented via guidance

• DECC LED Licensing have still to confirm required changes, but it seems likely that the Directive requirements relating to licensing and operatorship will be implemented via both legislation and guidance

• Consideration also being given to amending safety zone legislation / processes, to simplify the system and align it with Directive requirements

• Current DECC environmental regulations, apart from the emergency response regulations, e.g. EIA, Habitats, Offshore Chemicals, Oil Discharge etc., have been reviewed and no changes are anticipated

• New and amended charging schemes proposed for the current environmental regulations, to implement a more equitable system of cost recovery

Environmental Regulatory Changes


• DECC legal advisers have confirmed that we must follow ‘copy out’, and proposals to merge and replace the current oil pollution emergency response regulations would be ‘gold plating’

• Our understanding of existing restrictions on ‘gold plating’ is that transferring non-regulatory requirements into legislation could only be justified if the requirements exactly match the Directive requirements, and we could not create any additional regulatory requirements

• Our understanding is that transferring existing regulatory requirement into new regulations would also be ‘gold plating’

• The Emergency Pollution Control (EPC) Regulations and the Oil Pollution Response Convention (OPRC) Regulations will therefore remain in force, but the OPRC Regulations will be amended to implement the Directive requirements

• Regulations will be drafted to amend the OPRC Regulations and to implement other Directive requirements.

• It may be possible to implement some of the Directive requirements by administrative means, e.g. by updating existing regulatory and non-regulatory guidance



• Changes to Design and Major Hazards Reports to include environmental components will be covered by HSE regulations

• Requirements relating to Safety and Environmental Management Systems will be addressed separately, but will be combined for the purpose of meeting the requirements of the Directive:

The new DECC regulations will specify the requirement to maintain an Environmental Management System (EMS) that is accepted by DECC

DECC guidance will confirm that an integrated Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS) would be acceptable and specify EMS content

The existing EMS requirements relating to OSPAR Recommendation 2003/5 will be retained in the DECC guidance and extended to owners

of non-production installations

HSE regulations will cover the SEMS submission requirements relating to the Directive

• Directive requirements relating to Safety and Environmentally Critical Elements (SECE) will be covered by HSE regulations



• DECC requirements relating to broader Environmentally Critical Elements (ECE) issues, i.e. non-SECE, will be specified in DECC guidance (broadly based on the Energy Institute guidance)

• Directive requirements relating to well notifications and weekly well operations reports will be covered by HSE regulations

• DECC is considering whether the LED WONS process could be combined with the well notification process (but still separately reviewed by LED) to reduce the administrative burden

• Directive requirements relating to independent verification, e.g. for well notifications and SECE, will be covered by HSE regulations

• Directive requirements in relation to the movement of installations to and from the UKCS will be covered by HSE regulations

• Oil Pollution Emergency Plan will form part of the Internal Emergency Response Plan (IERP), in combination with the PFEER emergency plan

• New regulations will amend the OPRC Regulations to detail the additional requirements to be included in the OPEP, e.g. oil spill response gap analysis



• New regulations will amend the OPRC Regulations to extend the OPEP requirements to decommissioning operations

• DECC is considering whether the OPEP requirements should separately be extended to include Carbon Capture and Storage operations (this wouldn’t be included in the new regulations as it would be ‘gold plating’)

• New regulations will amend the OPRC Regulations to extend the OPEP requirements to the owners of non-production installations

• For drilling operations involving a MoDU, the owner of the MoDU would prepare an OPEP for the non-production installation (essentially the same as the current SOPEP), and the operator would prepare an addendum to that plan to cover the drilling operation

• New regulations will amend the OPRC Regulations to require an approved OPEP to be in place prior to commencing the proposed activities

• New regulations will introduce a charging scheme for the OPRC Regulations (this may follow later if it could delay new regulations)

• The existing OPEP guidance will be updated to reflect the changes relating to transposition of the Directive



• There will be a new requirement to describe the IERP (based on summaries of the OPEP and the PFEER) in the Major Hazards Report

• New regulations may require the use of suitable technical measures in order to promote the reliability of the collection and recording of relevant data and to prevent its manipulation

• New regulations will fill any gaps in the environmental notification and reporting requirements (no gaps are currently anticipated, but we have still to receive EUOAG conclusions relating to data collection and sharing)

• If necessary, new regulations will specify information sharing requirements for DECC / HSE

• A Competent Authority Portal is considered to be the best way to manage the submission, sharing, review and acceptance / approval of the Directive submissions and any related submissions (e.g. the OPEP)

• Amendments to the Environmental Damage Regulations will extend the Environmental Liability Directive provisions to all activities, not just oil and gas, anywhere on the UKCS, and licensees, operators and owners could all be liable for environmental damage

Timetable


• Directive came into force on 18 July 2013

• Interim website launched 6 January 2014 http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/directive.htm

• Workshops and Industry Focus Groups in March and April 2014

• Formal consultation on implementation proposals scheduled for June – September 2014

• New guidance to be published in Q1/Q2 2015

• New legislation must come into force to meet implementation deadline of 19 July 2015

• New production installations and all non-production installations and well operations must comply by 19 July 2016

• Transitional arrangements for existing production installations will commence in 2015 and all must comply by 19 July 2018

• Commission to assess effectiveness of transposition and review efficacy of Member States’ legislation

http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/directive.htm

Thank youAny enquiries

[email protected]

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eu offshore safety directive implementation and implications for environmental regulation

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environmental issuesca

environmental regimes

relevant safety

safety requirementsdefra

strong safety culture

major accidents

eu directorate general

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