Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of (a) detection and (b) reporting of hydrocarbon releases from oil and gas installations on the UK continental shelf since 2010.

The Health and Safety Executive has recorded the following hydrocarbon releases (HCRs) by year:

2000 264

2001 251

2002 242

2003 242

2004 273

2005 224

2006 190

2007 185

2008 147

2009 179

2010 186

2011 142

2012 105

2013 118

2014 94

2015 93

2016 101(p)

2017 103(p)

Final figures for 2016 will be confirmed and published with the provisional figures for 2017 as part of the Health and Safety Executive’s annual Offshore Statistics & Regulatory Activity Report, due to be published in July.

Releases are categorised as “major”, “significant” and “minor”, depending on the potential consequences of the event, which is usually directly linked to the total quantity or rate of release.Overall reported hydrocarbon releases have approximately halved since 2010. The reporting process presents an opportunity for both the regulator and the industry to investigate and identify underlying causes and learn lessons.

Although the offshore industry has seen the overall downward trend as an indicator of improved performance, HSE remains concerned that every release represents a deficiency in an operator’s process safety management, and an increased risk of harm to workers. There have also been a small number of large releases every year which could have resulted in a major accident.

Consequently, the Director of HSE’s Energy Division wrote recently to challenge the offshore industry to identify and address any weaknesses in its leadership and safety culture, as well as its arrangements for safety system audits, which have allowed such releases to occur (see attachment entitled Letter from the Director, HSE Energy Division to the Oil and Gas Industry on Hydrocarbon Releases).