Identifying the possible impacts of rock dump from oil and gas decommissioning on Annex I mobile sandbanks.

This project aims to evidence possible impacts associated with rock dumping during the decommissioning of oil and gas infrastructure on mobile Annex I sandbanks which are slightly covered by seawater all the time, using North Norfolk Sandbanks and Saturn Reef cSAC/SCI as a case study.

Project Background The next three decades will see a major decommissioning of UK oil and gas infrastructure with >8,000 platforms, pipelines and wells needing decommissioning around the UK.

Within offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), there are challenges and complexities beyond that of decommissioning activities out with MPAs as the potential impacts of human activities must be assessed against the conservation objectives established and advised by JNCC for the site.

There are considerable scientific uncertainties around the impacts associated with the process of decommissioning, none more so than where decommissioning occurs on or near Annex I tidal current (mobile) sandbanks.

Industry, regulators and Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (SNCBs) alike must comply with obligations set out in environmental legislation, and face individual sets of challenges in understanding potential impacts within MPAs.

JNCC‘s role within national and European legislation is to establish and advise on conservation objectives for MPAs, and with the SNCBs, to provide advice on whether potential impacts associated with human activities may have an adverse effect on protected features or site integrity.

Industry faces challenges regarding fulfilling their environmental obligations and regulators need to be able to introduce risk-based procedures for assessing effect in consenting operations.

Within MPAs, competent authorities, having considered advice given from the appropriate statutory nature conservation body, must assess the proposed operations against the site’s conservation objectives.

Improving our understanding of how decommissioning operations can effect Annex I mobile sandbanks would support the provision of more robust advice to regulators and other interested parties, support site specific and national assessments of impacts and allow competent authorities to undertake a more robust decision-making process.