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The Environment
continued
Water usage
As part of daily operations, the Bacton
Terminal extracts water from the underlying
aquifer, via two wells, for use in the gas
refining process and as a supply for fire-water.
Water usage is highly regulated by the
Environmental Agency (EA) to control total
consumption. Consented limits allow Bacton
to extract, on an annual basis, 47,700 m 3 of
water. In each year, water usage has been
within the consented limits and a significant
year-on-year reduction has been achieved
since 2004. In 2006, water usage was 61%
below the consented limit and was 36%
below water usage in the previous year.
Spills
In 2006, Tullow had two reportable spills.
On 19 February, a total of 0.00937 tonnes
of diesel spilled during an uploading activity
on the Hewett 48/29C facility. On 24 April,
there was a reportable chemical spill relating
to a sub-sea leak on the Hewett 48/29A that
required intervention from a dive support
vessel. The total spill was 6.3 tonnes.
The actual chemical involved has a low
environmental impact and is actually
authorised under the chemical regulations
to be utilised and discharged in the same
manner in which it was spilt. However,
because this was not a controlled discharge
it was reported in line with permit conditions.
In 2004 and 2005, the Group had no
significant spills.
ISO 14001 environmental certification
In May 2006, Tullow Oil plc achieved
ISO 14001 certification for the Group’s
corporate environmental management
system, the IMS. This was an amendment
to the scope of certification which, since
May 2003, covered our UK operations and
the Bacton Gas Terminal. The corporate
system has been tested in the UK and
Pakistan business units and they have been
appended to the certificate. During 2007,
we expect Bangladesh and Dublin to be
independently audited and added to the
certificate. We expect the number of verified
group operations to increase steadily in the
years ahead as part of the surveillance audits.
Improving how we record
During the year, we refined and enhanced
Accident and Incident Investigation
procedures to improve categorisation and
investigation of an incident at the time and
to ensure reporting to the appropriate level.
These new procedures are in place since
1 January, 2007. All health and safety
incidents, above medium potential, receive
immediate senior management attention
and are reported to the executive Directors
on a monthly basis and the Tullow Board
bi-annually. If a significant incident occurred
this would be reported to senior management
immediately. We analyse incidents to ensure
that we identify the root cause, understand
what the causal factors were and implement
the learnings from an incident to improve
our performance going forward.
Biodiversity management
Biodiversity is a collective term that is
used to describe the complexity of all life,
including the great variety of organisms and
their behaviours and interactions. In effect,
it is the wide range of animals, plants,
organisms, climatic conditions and unique
characteristics which exist in an area or
ecosystem. Any new entrant into that
ecosystem, if not very carefully planned
and managed, can have a long-term effect.
The management of biodiversity is an
important consideration for any organisation
in the development of a sustainable
long-term business, particularly for
companies in the oil and gas industry.
For Tullow, our goal is to preserve
biodiversity, and this objective is embedded
in our EHS policies and how we conduct
our activities. In practical terms, we carried
out specific assessments of biodiversity in
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uganda in the
fourth quarter of 2006, to confirm that there
were no protected areas or environmentallysensitive
sites in the areas where we are
operating. We established that although
there are a few protected areas or areas
with specific environmental sensitivity in
the vicinity of our assets, there are none
encroaching on our operations. There are two
nature reserves involved in our exploration
blocks in Uganda and we are managing our
activities there very carefully to ensure that
we prevent any long-term impact, and
minimise our short-term effect.
We also prepared a Biodiversity Action
Plan (BAP) at the end of 2006, to identify the
sensitivities across all our activities, describe
our existing mitigation plans and policies
and highlight any further actions required.
As part of the Group’s operational planning
we use the BAP to shape our exploration
processes and country activities, and at a
project level this information is combined
with our ESIA tool to ensure biodiversity is
considered at the planning stages of projects
and developments.
24 Tullow Oil plc Corporate and Social Responsibility Report 2006