The international ISO 14001 environmental standards is an excellent tool for conducting good environmental management.
StatoilHydro has identified important environmental aspects relating to our activities on the NCS.
These include the content of oil and chemical additives in discharges to the sea, emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, minimising waste and acute accidental oil spills.
To achieve good environmental management, we have identified five key aspects of our offshore operations which affect the environment:
Oil in discharges of produced water
The concentration of oil in the water we discharge to the sea has steadily declined. While the official ceiling is 30 milligrams per litre, a number of the installations we operate are now below 10 mg/l. However, we are constantly working to achieve further cuts.
Chemical additives in discharges of produced water
Discharges of environmentally hazardous chemicals added during the production process have declined by about 80% since 2000. Virtually all such substances have been replaced with far less hazardous alternatives. We are continuing our efforts to phase out the remaining chemicals which could be an environmental burden.
Emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides
We are introducing energy management from 2008 in order to become even more efficient in this area. Trading with carbon allowances has been introduced for the 2008-12 period, and planned projects will give us a better overview of both carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. We believe, for instance, that our reporting exaggerates the volume of nitrogen oxides we actually release.
Minimising waste
We are constantly working to reduce the volume of waste generated by our operations, not least by increasing the proportion which is sorted and recycled.
Acute discharges
Accidental spills are spills we work hard to avoid, and account for less than 2% of our total discharges to sea when compared with the levels set in our permits. Since large spills or those which occur at an unfortunate time could have consequences for the environment, reducing the number of volume of such discharges is one of our priorities.
