The most recent North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) report was published in October 2025 and is available on the NSTA’s website.

The Principles of Process Safety Leadership programme for the offshore UK Continental Shelf energy industry was focused on improving process safety leadership for offshore oil and gas installation operators. Safety critical maintenance programmes at contractor level are managed by these oil and gas operators.

There has been sustained focus on offshore oil and gas operators since the pandemic including an annual request to report to Health and Safety Executive, their overall maintenance backlog position, including deferred workscopes. There has been an improving trend in these backlog numbers over the past four years. An agreed set of industry KPIs is now in place and a Maintenance Backlog Task/Finish Group was established to address the challenges including sharing good practice in the delivery of maintenance work.

As a result of the review of maintenance backlog data and targeted offshore installation and HQ interventions over the recent years Improvement Notices have been served on the following installation operators (for both single and multiple installations). These are accessible on Health and Safety Executives’s enforcement database:

For 2022/23:

Ithaca Alba

Eni Douglas

CNR multiple installations

Perenco multiple installations

Total Gryphon

Harbour Armada

For 2023/24:

Repsol Auk

Total Dunbar

Apache multiple installations

For 2024/25:

Total Culzean

Dana Triton

In July, the government confirmed changes to the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), including extending the levy’s end date to March 2030, increasing it by three percentage points to 38%, removing the levy’s main 29% investment allowance, and reducing the generosity of capital allowances when calculating profits taxable by the EPL. The government will confirm further details of these changes at Budget on October 30, including the rate of the EPL’s decarbonisation investment allowance, which has been retained. We are currently consulting with the sector to finalise these changes and ensure a phased and responsible transition for the North Sea.

Money raised from these changes will support the transition to clean energy, increasing security and independence while providing sustainable jobs for the future and helping to protect electricity bills against future price shocks. Full costings certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will be published at Budget on October 30. Forecasts for investment in the sector will also be published by the OBR at this time, and will take into account policy decisions impacting the production of oil and gas across the UK and UK Continental Shelf.

This Government will ensure a phased and responsible North Sea transition. We will manage the North Sea in a way that does not jeopardise jobs.

As Britain becomes a clean energy superpower, the government is determined to create new high-quality jobs, working with industry and trade unions as we manage the transition.

National Minimum Wage (NMW) legislation applies to those who work or ordinarily work in the UK and those Seafarers exploiting and exploring the UK part of the continental shelf are entitled to the UK National Minimum Wage, as well as to some workers on UK-registered ships. We have a proud record of extending the NMW to seafarers.

In October 2020, legislation came into force to extend the right to the minimum wage to all seafarers on domestic voyages in the UK territorial sea and to those working in the UK part of the continental shelf.

We will continue to consider the needs of all sectors of the economy and take measures where these are needed, taking an evidence-based approach.

Numerous public sector organisations undertake seabed mapping activities in support of their remits. There is also a range of activity within the private sector. There is currently no unified target for seabed mapping across these jurisdictions, other than to remain complaint with relevant international legislation.

Between the 1 October 2022 and the end of March 2023, the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) are aware of activity to map 1672 km2 of seabed to modern international standards within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone around the British Isles. This equates to 0.3% of the UK EEZ, including the UK Territorial Seas and internal waters.

In the Crown Dependencies, who deliver their own mapping requirements with assistance from HMG, the UKHO are aware of 58 km2 being mapped to modern standards during the same period, all within the Isle of Man, equating to 0.6% of their Territorial Sea.

In the UK Overseas Territories, the UKHO are not aware of any seabed mapping activities being undertaken during the period in question.

The creation of jobs in this sphere is not Ministry of Defence responsibility but the department is always willing to support other departments where appropriate and where it has capacity to do so.

The North Sea Transition Authority provides data and projections on a calendar year-basis, publishing projections for production but not exploration. The number of exploration wells will depend upon the results of the 33rd Licensing Round, which closes on 12 January 2023.

Production projections can be found here: https://www.nstauthority.co.uk/media/8365/nsta-august-2022-production-projections-plus-ccc-and-beis-demand-projections.xlsx.

On 14 March, my rt. hon. Friend the Prime Minister hosted a roundtable of leaders in the UK’s offshore oil and gas industry to discuss domestic energy security, increasing investment in the North Sea oil and gas industry and boosting supply of domestic gas.

The North Sea Transition Authority plans to launch another licensing round in the autumn, taking into account the forthcoming climate compatibility checkpoint.

Government revenues received from North Sea oil and gas operators between 1968 to 1969 and 2020 to 2021 are presented in Table 2 of HM Revenue & Custom’s (HMRC) “Statistics of government revenues from UK oil and gas production” publication, available on GOV.UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/government-revenues-from-uk-oil-and-gas-production--2

Data for 2021 to 2022 onwards can be found in the “HMRC tax receipts and National Insurance contributions for the UK” tables, also available on GOV.UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk

Although many duty holders undertook extended maintenance shutdowns in 2021, these were often not enough to eliminate the backlog issues. As well as through its day-to-day regulatory activities, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also impacts on offshore safety through membership of working groups. One of these is the Asset Integrity Task Group (AITG). AITG members include Apache, BP, CNOOC, CNR, Repsol Sinopec, TAQA as well as the Oil and Gas Authority and Oil and Gas UK. The AITG’s current key focus relates to addressing asset integrity issues, including maintenance backlog, through a more effective focus on Process Safety Leadership. The offshore industry signed up to improving its approach to Process Safety Leadership at the Oil and Gas UK’s Health & Safety Conference in 2019.

Outcomes of HSE’s working on alternative means than traditional shutdowns to address maintenance backlogs, include the recognition by industry that a move towards more sustained asset integrity campaigns for late life installations is required. Potential solutions include increasing the size of the offshore workforce using flotels or jack-up drilling rigs in accommodation mode alongside production installations and more frequent maintenance campaigns; more extended shutdowns and Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSOs) being taken off station for extensive maintenance that cannot be done offshore.

The data provided to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) indicates that there has been a distinct increasing trend in maintenance backlogs. Operators record and classify their maintenance backlog figures according to their own safety management systems. There is no legal requirement for operators to be record it in a particular way. This means that it is difficult and potentially misleading to compare the maintenance figures for different operators in absolute terms. What is clear though is that there is a clear trend of an increase in maintenance backlog among UKCS operators. HSE’s focus is on how effectively operators risk manage their backlogs until they have dealt with them.

HSE does not record its enforcement actions specifically in relation to “maintenance backlogs”. A search of HSE’s database has revealed that since the start of the initial pandemic lockdown in March 2020, there have been 112 interventions that have looked at maintenance management, including backlog, and have resulted in enforcement action in the form of letters and notices. A table showing the actions in relation to installations and their duty holders is attached.

The UKCS safety case regime requires all offshore duty holders to demonstrate to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) they can comply with safety legislation. Every UKCS offshore installation has an accepted safety case. HSE has a targeted intervention plan which involves testing the assertions made in safety cases. All duty holders must continue to demonstrate they are operating in compliance with their accepted safety case, and this includes the potential impact of reducing personnel numbers offshore for whatever reason. HSE’s interventions have covered duty holders’ continued ability to comply with legal requirements irrespective of whatever changes in offshore personnel levels they make.

There is no legal requirement for operators on the UK Continental Shelf to report their planned maintenance shutdowns to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). HSE does not collect information on the numbers and timing of planned maintenance shutdowns on an annual basis.

As part of its ongoing interactions with operators on the UKCS, HSE does discuss with them any planned maintenance shutdowns they are considering so that HSE can determine what, if any, regulatory intervention might be required.

A copy of the Health and Safety Executive’s Question Set, as referred to in the answer to Question 80980, is attached.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does not routinely collect information on planned maintenance shutdowns on a yearly basis. There is no legal duty for operators on the UK Continental Shelf to inform HSE of this information, however it is held at a company level.

No recent discussions have taken place between the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) Energy Division on this specific issue. Recognising the potential impact of the pandemic in 2020, HSE wrote to production installation duty holders with a detailed question set on maintenance and inspection backlogs, in order to evaluate and quantify the specific impact of pandemic-related down-manning on backlog. HSE’s analysis of the data provided in response to its question set indicated an increase in backlogs. This was because duty holders had postponed maintenance shutdowns because their approach to managing the risk of COVID infection required reduced manning levels that were insufficient to undertake the shutdowns.

HSE took the following steps:

(i) Identified at the outset of the pandemic that maintenance would be affected and carried out inspections using the existing ‘Maintenance management’ Inspection Guide, which HSE developed in 2014 specifically to address backlogs.

(ii) Worked with duty holders to look at alternative ways of carrying out the work, such as mini shutdowns and the use of “flotels” and walk-to-work vessels etc.

(iii) Set up a working group with Oil & Gas UK and its members to specifically look at addressing the backlog issue.

(iv) Took enforcement action where backlogs were not being managed safely.

(v) Set up a program of Process Safety Leadership inspections starting in Q1 2022, of which asset integrity and maintenance backlog will form a key component.

(vi) Worked with senior industry integrity personnel in the Asset Integrity Task Group to highlight and address the issue.

(vii) Repeating the data gathering exercise in Q1 2022 to check that duty holders are managing their backlogs as they stated and to take enforcement action if they are not.