The British Goverment has approved a licence for Chevron to begin deepwater drilling off the coast of Scotland.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) granted the licence, allowing the first deepwater activity in UK waters since the Gulf of Mexico spill in April. The DECC stated that "the strictest possible" regulation was being applied to the Lagavulin Project owned by Chevron.
The granting of the licence came under fierce criticism from environmentalists, with Greenpeace leading the campaign and taking direct action against one of the drill ships. However, the DECC stated that it faced a choice of producing hydrocarbons in UK waters under the one of the toughest regulatory regimes in the world, or importing oil and gas.
The British government has repeatedly rejected calls for a moratorium on deepwater drilling since the Gulf spill earlier this year, and is likely to grant further licences in the near future.
Meanwhile, a report from financial analysts Deloitte and Douglas-Westood predicts the cost of decommissioning more than 260 offshore oil and gas platforms currently sited on the UK Continental Shelf could total $30bn over the next 30 years. The majority of the activity will take place between 2017 and 2027, according to the report and could exceed existing resources able to handle the heavy lifting and onshore work.
According to a Deliotte spokesman, the scale of the North Sea structures and the climate in which they operate create additional challenges not usually faced with decommissioning.