U.K. Offshore Operators Association (Ukooa) has reacted angrily to claims by U.K.'s Labour Party that the offshore oil industry has a poor environmental record under government by the Conservative Party.
As Labour and Conservatives fight for dominance in the runup to an election, expected by mid-May, Labour accused U.K. operators of dumping an excessive amount of oily waste in drilling cuttings (see Watching the World, this page).
Labour said U.K. has dumped far more oil this way than Norway, but Ukooa noted the U.K. has produced more than 2 billion metric tons of oil since 1975, while Norway has produced 1.3 billion metric tons.
"The total amount of oil spilled and discharged from the vast quantity that has been produced to date represents only 0.008% of the total," said Ukooa.
"The industry complies with all international regulations that strictly limit the discharge of oil drilling cuttings, and from the beginning of this month, new regulations limit the oil content of discharged drilling cuttings to less than 1%.
"To achieve this, many companies have stopped using oil-based drilling muds or are bringing all their cuttings to shore. The industry has been very open about the difficulties of dealing with drilling cuttings."
Ukooa also disputed Labour's claim that a 500 m radius circle around each drilling cuttings dump site is a "biological desert," with serious damage to sea life observed to a radius of several kilometers.
"At many well sites," said Ukooa, "and for over half the installations, there are no accumulated piles of well cuttings beneath them, for the simple reason that seabed scour is so strong that cuttings have long since been wholly or partly dissipated, to no apparent environmental ill effect."
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