OIL slicks off the coasts of Aberdeen and Shetland have been identified in a report revealing thousands of tonnes of spills into UK waters from oil and gas production over the last five years.
The data, reported by the BBC and obtained by energy campaigning group Uplift through a freedom of information request, revealed 22,000 metric tonnes of oil were discharged into UK waters with analysis revealing 42% of this breached government permits.
The satellite imagery, analysed by non-profit environmental watchdog Sky Truth, shows oil slicks of more than 10 kilometres coming off oil rigs north east of Aberdeen and off the coast of Shetland.
Over the period the FOI covers, 2017 to 2022, 20% of oil spills from Ninian were unpermitted.
The Ninian oil platform, based off the Shetland coast and owned by Canadian Natural Resources, has been responsible for individual slicks over 10km long. The SkyTruth imagery suggests that Ninian has released more oil into the North Sea than any other development.
Modelling featured in the In Deep Water report shows that a major oil spill from Rosebank, west of Shetland, could risk serious impact to at least 16 UK Marine Protected Areas.
Tessa Khan, the executive director and founder of Uplift, described the images as “disturbing” and added: “That's oil that risks being inhaled by whales and porpoises, and that's landing on the rich corals and reefs on our seabed."
The green shapes in the images of rigs below show other slicks detected by SkyTruth’s AI-powered Cerulean system over a two-year period from the same rigs.
John Amos, chief executive officer of SkyTruth, commented: "This report is exactly what we were hoping for when we began developing Cerulean: spotlighting and measuring the long-hidden problem of chronic oil pollution using satellite imagery and artificial intelligence."
Chronic oil pollution is permanent, caused either by repeated or continuous emissions of the fossil fuel that are moved around by wind and currents, while waves break the oil apart.
Amos added: "Sustained, effective public pressure on government and industry is the key to resolving this pollution problem, and holding off the accompanying climate impact of offshore oil development."
None of the slicks pictured spilled into Marine Protected Areas, but spills from North Sea oil rigs and others in UK waters were found to have overlapped with the protected water zones.
Hugo Tagholm, director of ocean conservation campaign group Oceana, said: "Oil spills every other day from these regular releases is a huge problem for marine life".
Tagholm added that the spills threaten the feeding and breeding patterns of species in Marine Protected Areas, including harbour porpoises, deep sea sponges and slow growing cold-water corals.
Uplift also analysed companies that spilled the most permitted and unpermitted oil since 2017. The top five in order from most to least were Dana at 6943 metric tonnes, Repsol Sinopec at 4220, CNR at 3805, Shell at 3243 and Apache at 3108.
A UK Government spokesperson said offshore pollution incidents were monitored closely, adding: "We are clear that companies should not be breaching their permit conditions. If they do, appropriate action will be taken, including the use of fines".
Dana and Shell referred to a statement from Offshore Energies UK as their response to the findings. Repsol Sinopec, CNR and Apache did not respond to a request for comment.
A report released on the impacts of oil and gas production on UK waters commissioned by Oceana was released on Thursday stating that the nations waters are “too noisy, polluted, built-up and disturbed for our rich marine life to thrive.”
The Scottish Government did not respond to a request for comment.
