Overview

Introduction

(image by R. Van Pelt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License)

Scottish Ministers are seeking comments on proposals to transpose Article 38 of Directive 2013/30/EU[1] on the safety of offshore oil and gas operations (OSD). Article 38 has extended the scope of the Environmental Liability Directive (2004/35/EC)[2] into the marine environment in relation to marine waters. The Scottish Government has produced draft Environmental Liability (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2015 that will transpose Article 38 in Scottish territorial waters.

Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government undertook separate consultation exercises in July 2014 on corresponding legislation in relation to marine waters off England and Wales.  This can be found here.

This consultation also forms part of the wider transposition of the OSD, the principal responsibility for which rests with UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). A related consultation exercise has been run by them to transpose the other parts of the OSD by the deadline of 19 July 2015. This can be found here.

The OSD aims to reduce the potential for major accidents relating to offshore oil and gas activities and limit their impacts on the environment and coastal economies and further improve safety standards for offshore workers. It will apply to existing and future offshore installations/operations in waters under Member States’ jurisdiction.

If you would prefer not to use citizen space, you can return comments to:

Marine.Environment@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

or to

Rhona Cairns

Environmental Liability Directive Consultation

Marine Scotland

Area 1A,

Victoria Quay

Edinburgh

EH6 6QQ

In line with Scottish Government policy we will publish a summary of the responses we receive to this consultation.

This consultation will run for 8 weeks from 18^th February to 14^th April 2015.

What happens next

What are you going to do next?

Following the close of the consultation on the 14^th April 2015 responses will be reviewed and considered along with any other available evidence. A consultation report summarising the findings of this consultation will be produced.

When will you publish resonses (by)?

Where permission has been given for responses to be made public they will be published on the Scottish Government consultation webpages by 27^th May 2015.

We aim to have the amended legislation in place by the 19^th July 2015 due to this being the transposition deadline for the Directive.