The Brent field is situated 186km (116 miles) offshore, north-east of Lerwick, Scotland, at a water depth of 140m (460ft), and consists of four large platforms; Brent Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta.  The Brent field was discovered in 1971 and oil production began in 1976. Then in the mid 1990s following substantial redevelopment, Brent production became predominantly gas.  At some stage the flow of oil and gas from Brent will decline and reach a point at which it is no longer viable to run the field.

Shell, who is the operator of the Brent Field for and on behalf of Shell UK Limited and Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, is holding a series of focused stakeholder dialogue sessions as part of the companies’ engagement on the decommissioning of the Brent field’s oil and gas production facilities.  The impetus for this type of workshop was a response to stakeholder feedback that future engagement focused on specific topics and issues of particular significance or technical challenge would be particularly appreciated.

The sessions form part of the Brent facilities decommissioning studies, which are being developed with a view to submission of a decommissioning programme, which has to be submitted to the UK Government Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) for approval.

Stakeholder engagement events, to which a large number and range of stakeholders are invited, have commenced.  Following initial introductory sessions in January 2007 further stakeholder dialogue events have been held in November 2007 in Aberdeen and London, concentrating on the storage cells at the base of platform Brent Delta’s concrete gravity base structures (GBS).  To view the transcript report that forms a combined meeting record for the Aberdeen and London workshops of November 2007, please click here (.pdf 656KB).  Further workshops are planned for September 2008 focusing on discussions on the decommissioning options for the gravity base structure and other stakeholder dialogue engagement events are planned in 2009.

The workshops are being designed and facilitated on behalf of the companies by an independent team from The Environment Council, which is also undertaking an evaluation of the engagement programme.  If you require any further information please contact Claire Mellier at The Environment Council by phone on 020 7632 0110 or by email.

Further information on the Brent facilities decommissioning studies can also be found on the Shell UK Limited website here.

Last updated: July 2008