Environmental Statement - Maersk Oil

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5‐ 20 Balloch Field Development Environmental Statement Section 5 Assessment of Potential Impacts and Controls (a) deliberately capture, injure, or kill any wild animal of a European protected species; (termed ‘the injury offence’); (b) deliberately disturb wild animals of any such species (termed ‘the disturbance offence’). New developments must assess if their activity, either alone or in combination with other activities, is likely to cause an offence involving an EPS. Figure 5‐3 illustrates the suggested approach to a risk assessment for the offences of deliberate injury and deliberate disturbance. If there is a risk of causing an injury or disturbance to an EPS that cannot be removed or sufficiently reduced by using alternatives and/or mitigation measures, the activity may still be able to go ahead under licence. In the case of oil and gas activities, the EPS licence assessment will be carried out by DECC. Figure 5‐3 A suggested approach to risk assessment for offences of ‘deliberate injury’ and ‘deliberate disturbance’ (adapted from JNCC, 2010). The results from the underwater noise modelling carried out suggests permanent injury (i.e. PTS) to cetaceans is not anticipated, therefore no injury offence is expected. Given that the piling activity will only occur for a limited period of time, the activity is not expected to result in any significant displacement of marine animals. Any animals that are temporarily displaced are expected to return to the area after installation activities cease. Therefore, no disturbance offence is expected. The proposed mitigation measures that will be put in place during the subsea installation activities will further minimise the risk of causing an offence to EPS. Therefore, Maersk Oil believes that an application for an EPS licence is not required. 5.6.2. PROTECTED AREAS The proposed Balloch development is located approximately 10 km southeast of the Scanner pockmark SAC. The discharge of WBM and cuttings during drilling operations may impact on pockmarks by smothering the benthic communities around the well, while anchors used to stabilise the drilling rig may disturb other small areas of seabed. Pipeline installation can also impact pockmarks through smothering. The effect of drilling a well at a distance greater than 1 km from an active pockmark has been assessed as not being significant (DTI, 2001; McQuillin et al., 1979); therefore, given their proximity to the Balloch development, no significant impacts are expected upon any marine protected areas. The pockmarks that have been identified in site surveys in the vicinity of the proposed Balloch development were found to not conform to the description of Annex I habitat ‘submarine structures made by leaking gas’. However, as good operating practice Maersk Oil will review any available
Balloch Field Development Environmental Statement Section 5 Assessment of Potential Impacts and Controls survey data in order to select a drilling location that will ensure that interactions with pockmarks or other types of seabed depressions within the area are avoided. 5.6.3. OTHER MARINE USERS Potential impacts on other marine users include interference with commercial shipping, potential exclusion of fisherman from fishing grounds and damage to fishing gear. Operations will be undertaken in accordance with legal requirements and best practice to ensure that commercial operators and fishing vessels are aware of the location of the vessels and infrastructure. While on location, a 500 m exclusion zone will be in place around the drilling rig which may impact on the shipping and fishing activity in the area. However, these impacts on shipping are only associated with the drilling phase. During production, no additional vessels will be on location and the only additional vessel movements will be a small increase in tanker movements associated with offloading the oil. Although the Balloch field is within a relatively important area in terms of fishing effort (ICES rectangle 45F0, which has approximately 1 % of the UK fishing effort associated with it), once in the production phase the proposed development is not expected to impact further on the fishing industry given the minimal infrastructure associated with it. In addition, the wellheads and cooling spools will be of a fishing friendly design. Subsea infrastructure will be submitted for inclusion on the Admiralty Charts and the FishSafe database. There are no submarine cables or renewable energy installations in the area. 5.6.4. TRANSBOUNDARY IMPACTS Given the distance of the Balloch field from the nearest transboundary line, i.e. 36 km from the UK/Norwegian median line, the impact assessment determined there would be no significant transboundary impacts as a result of the proposed planned activities, with atmospheric emissions and discharges to sea expected to disperse within a short distance from the development. Accidental events such as an uncontrolled blowout from the Balloch location has the potential to affect Norwegian, Danish, Dutch and German territorial waters. This is discussed further is Section 6. 5.7. CUMULATIVE IMPACTS The cumulative impacts assessment has considered three environmental aspects: atmospheric emissions, discharges to sea and underwater noise. The Balloch development will contribute a CO2 increase of approximately 2.6 % to drilling emissions when compared with 2009 total rig emissions (Table 5‐2). Well clean‐up emissions are expected to contribute 0.49 % of CO2 emissions when compared to 2009 values from the UKCS (Table 5‐4). Vessel emissions are expected to contribute 0.53 % of the UK total from shipping emissions when compared to 2009 UK shipping emissions (Table 5‐5). Maximum annual energy emissions from the production of the Balloch hydrocarbons represents 0.17% of total emissions from installations in 2009 (Table 5‐ 10). The generation of emissions will add to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and hence marginally contribute to the effects of global warming. The emissions are not considered to be significant when considered in the context of total emissions from the UKCS oil and gas and shipping activities. Consequently, no significant cumulative impacts are anticipated. The PW from the Balloch field increases as the reservoirs are depleted; the maximum volume of oil in water is 38 tonnes, which is produced in 2016 (Table 5‐12). When these discharges are compared to the oil in water discharges arising from the UKCS sector as a whole, they represent an increase of 1.3 %. Increases in oil in water levels as a result of the Balloch development are not anticipated to result in any adverse cumulative impacts. 5 ‐ 21
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B ‐ 2 Halocarbon release during e
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Discharges to Sea Discharge from pi
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Production Phase Environmental Aspe
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B ‐ 10 Drainage water Discharge o
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Physical presence Oil and gas infra
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Major accidental events Other envir
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Environmental Statement - Maersk Oil

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