Oil and Gas Industry
Oil and gas operators require reliable environmental information on which to base development decisions in order to comply with regulations. They are responsible for managing the impacts of their operations on the surrounding environment, which requires a knowledge of the prevailing environmental status and the ability to detect environmental change.
Cefas provides a wide rage of environmental services to meet these needs of operators and regulators. In the UK we are responsible for the Offshore Chemical Notification Scheme (OCNS) which regulates the use of chemicals offshore.
We are experienced in measuring environmental quality, modelling environmental processes, detecting environmental change and predicting environmental impacts. Services provided include:
Advice
- Use, testing and environmental impacts of all oil spill treatment products (dispersants, sorbents etc..).
- Approval, impacts and regulatory assessment of all chemicals used in the offshore industry.
- UK policy and OSPAR requirements for the offshore oil and gas industry.
- environmental impacts of construction, discharges and activities in coastal and offshore environments.
- Setting up of product approval schemes (e.g. Oil spill treatment products, offshore chemicals) for overseas customers.
- Emergency response advice realted to impacts of oil/chemical spills and effects of remediation options.
- status and biology of fish stocks in the vicinity of offshore installations.
Testing
- Toxicity testing of products (water and sediment based tests – all PARCOM approved techniques).
- Fate of products (partitioning, biodegradation, bioaccumulation etc..).
- Chemical analyJanuary 13, 2006ment and biota.
- Toxicity Identification Evaluation/Toxicity Reduction Evaluation (TIE/TRE) of produced water and other effluents.
- Spill tracking (oil ‘footprint’ identification).
- Analysis of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) as a result of oil and gas activities.
Assessments
- Environmental Impact Assessments of offshore industry activities and discharges.
- Assessment of fish, benthic and/or planktonic communities and diversity at installation vicinities.
- Marine habitat mapping.
- Strategic environmental assessments.
- Assessment of fish aggregations and residence around platforms/ pipelines (inc. use of acoustics or acoustic telemetry).
- Integrated seabed surveying.
Monitoring
- Environmental recovery post decommissioning.
- Post spill (oil or chemical) environmental recovery monitoring.
- Environmental recovery in vicinity of cuttings piles.
- Ecotoxicological assessment of water and/or sediments taken in vicinity of oil & gas installations.
- Monitoring and assessment of impacts from the disturbance of cuttings piles
Research
- Product development (toxicity testing and hazard/risk assessment).
- Long-term environmental impacts of oil & gas exploration and production.
- Analytical Chemistry: method development for specific chemicals.
Modelling
- Oil and chemical spill trajectory modelling.
- Backtracking of oil spills to potential source location/time.
- Production of ‘Footprints’ of impact for specific scenarios.
Quality Assurance
- Intercalibrations for PARCOM toxicity test species, providing external quality assurance of data – Corophium, Acartia and Skeletonema. Other test available on demand.
Training
