The company that runs Wytch Farm, the UK’s largest onshore oilfield, has been fined a record sum for releasing gas without permission.

The industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), reported today it had issued a £225,000 fine to Perenco UK Limited.

This is the highest ever financial penalty issued by the regulator. It relates to venting (releasing unburnt gas) without consent for more than a month from Perenco’s Dimlington onshore gas processing plant, in East Yorkshire.

The release of 59 tonnes represented a quarter of Perenco’s total annual limit on gas venting at the Dimlington site.

NSTA said in a statement that Perenco had permission to vent 235 tones for the year from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022.

This limit was exceeded on 6 November 2022, NSTA said. The extra gas was vented until a new consent was issued on 14 December 2022.

NSTA said Perenco had stated that it had systems to track the daily volumes of gas it emitted. But the regulator said there was “an absence of internal mechanisms [at Perenco] to ensure that any risks identified through this system were appropriately actioned”.

The fine was intended to deter companies from breaching their venting limit, NSTA said. It also reflected what NSTA described as the “seriousness of the breach” and Perenco’s delayed engagement with the regulator.

The NSTA’s director of regulation, Jane de Lozey, said:

“Operating within consent and prompt engagement with the NSTA helps maintain confidence in the sector. However, as today’s fine demonstrates, we will take firm action for any failures to meet regulatory obligations.”

Perenco said in a statement that exceeding the 2022 gas venting consent had been unintentional.

The general manager of Perenco UK, Jo White, said:

“Perenco is firmly committed to its ESG [environmental, social and governance] commitments and has reduced its total emissions from the SNS [southern north sea] business unit by 29% between 2018 and 2022.”

NSTA reported last year that North Sea emissions had fallen three years in a row and there had been a 23% drop in total emissions since 2018.

But the UK oil and gas sector is not on course to meet its emissions reduction target in 2030. A fifth of carbon emissions in the UK continental shelf were from flaring and venting, the regulator said.

NSTA plans to reduce emissions across the industry include zero routine flaring and venting by 2030.

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