The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) announced, in a statement posted on its website this week, that emissions in the North Sea have fallen for a sixth consecutive year, “demonstrating real effort and achievement on behalf of the oil and gas industry”.
According to the statement, “robust regulation and industry action” saw production emissions fall by an estimated seven percent in 2025. This contributed to an overall estimated reduction of 37 percent since 2018, according to the latest Emissions Monitoring Report from the NSTA, the statement outlined.
More than half of last year’s emissions reductions were attributable to active measures implemented on installations that remain operational, rather than just assets that have stopped producing, the NSTA’s statement noted.
The statement highlighted that the NSTA’s report also showed the UK’s production emissions intensity was “well below the global average”, according to Rystad data, “mainly due to very strong performance on methane emissions”.
“While this is impressive, CO2 intensity compares less favorably globally, and with UK production forecast to decline in future years, continued industry effort on decarbonization will be needed to prevent sharp increases in emissions intensity, and loss of global position,” the NSTA said.
The North Sea Transition Deal interim targets of reducing emissions by 10 percent by 2025 and by 25 percent by 2027 have been surpassed, the NSTA highlighted in its statement. It added that the goal of halving emissions by 2030 is achievable, “based on the current trajectory”.
“The NSTA is committed to its emissions reductions plan (the OGA Plan) and has always said it will apply it in a reasonable and pragmatic way that avoids unintended consequences,” the NSTA noted in its statement.
“Consistent with this approach and following robust assessments, the NSTA has concluded that it is not reasonable to electrify a number of platforms in the Central North Sea, partly due to external challenges such as grid connections,” it added.
“This has had an impact on emissions abatement potential projections,” it continued.
The NSTA went on to state that the industry “has a strong record of delivery over the last seven years” but warned that “without continued, and even expanded, effort and focus, the long-standing 2040 target of a 90 percent reduction in emissions will not be achieved”.
“Operators will need to build on the outstanding record to date. They are expected to leave no stone unturned in identifying alternative low-carbon power options in cases where full scale platform electrification is not reasonable, as well as taking an innovative approach to all the requirements set out in the OGA Plan,” it added.
“There is the potential to revisit these assessments should circumstance materially change, for instance regarding delivery confidence, first power dates or project economics,” it said.
The NSTA pointed out in its statement that, in its North Sea Future Plan, the UK government “reinforced its support for the NSTA’s approach to emissions reduction, while recognizing that domestic oil and gas production, and the associated workforce, continue to play an important role in the energy mix for decades to come, as the UK transitions to net zero”.
In the NSTA statement, NSTA Director of Strategy Hedvig Ljungerud said, “the North Sea is a vital part of the UK’s energy system, contributing to the transition and many thousands of skilled jobs”.
“It is welcome to see continued impressive reductions in production emissions, reflecting industry work and commitment,” he added.
“Looking to the challenges ahead, both future targets and staying globally competitive, the NSTA expects operators to rise to these – as they have many times in the past – and show great urgency in committing to additional, significant efforts across the board to drive down emissions,” he continued.
The NSTA highlighted in its statement that it “keeps a tight grip on flaring and venting volumes” through its annual consents system and noted that, since early 2021, it has issued fines totaling GBP 1.7 million ($2.2 million) for breaches. The NSTA said it has also promoted investment in equipment to reduce flaring and venting and pointed out that each operator must produce an agreed Emissions Reduction Action Plan for every asset as part of the OGA Plan.
“This approach helped cut overall flaring volumes by 60 percent between 2018 and 2025, while methane emissions, most of which come from venting and flaring, also dropped by an estimated 60 percent over the same period,” the NSTA stated.
The NSTA also noted that new platforms “typically have lower emissions intensities than aging assets as they have more modern fuel-efficient equipment and technologies designed to cut flaring and venting, and tend to benefit from higher production efficiency”.
“Encouragingly, Serica Energy installed a flare gas recovery unit at the Bruce field earlier this year, while Neo Next+ is undertaking a similar project at the Elgin-Franklin field, and a partial electrification project at the Culzean gas platform,” the NSTA highlighted in the statement.
When asked for comment on the NSTA’s statement, Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) Environment and Emissions Manager Caroline Brown told Rigzone, “the NSTA report shows the offshore energy industry is continuing to make real progress in reducing emissions”.
“Emissions from oil and gas production are now 37 percent lower than in 2018, and the sector has already gone beyond the interim targets agreed under the North Sea Transition Deal,” Brown added.
“While some of this derives from declining production in a mature basin, a significant contribution has come from companies investing in equipment upgrades, methane detection and monitoring programs, flare reduction projects, process optimization and more efficient power generation, helping to lower emissions while continuing to provide the energy the UK relies on,” Brown continued.
Looking at the “global context”, Brown told Rigzone that the UK “continues to perform strongly on emissions intensity, with reductions in flaring, venting and methane emissions helping to drive improvements across the basin” and highlighted that the sector “remains on a credible path towards its 2030 target of a 50 percent reduction in emissions”.
The NSTA pointed out in its statement that the OGA Plan “calls for concerted action across four areas: electrification and low-carbon power, flaring and venting, investment and efficiency, and focus on inventory as a whole, with increased scrutiny of assets with high emissions intensity”.
The OGA Plan on emissions reduction, which was published on March 27, 2024, sets out the NSTA’s requirements for how relevant persons can meet the Central Obligation, as set out in the Strategy, for Green House Gas (GHG) emissions reductions from oil and gas extraction, the NSTA’s website states.
“The OGA Plan, produced after public consultation, makes it clear that for production to continue in the North Sea, it must also continue to become cleaner,” the site notes.
“The NSTA will apply the OGA Plan in a reasonable manner and will not pursue actions that could bring about significant unintended consequences simply because of specific wording in the OGA Plan,” it adds.
In a statement posted on its website back in September, the NSTA announced that, according to a recent NSTA report, North Sea production was more cost-efficient last year, with spending per barrel nine percent lower than in 2024.
“The average cost to produce a barrel of oil equivalent (boe) fell from GBP 19.60 [$25.99] in 2024 to GBP 17.81 [$23.62] in 2025, according to the NSTA’s UKCS Unit Operating Cost report, a key benchmark for the industry,” the statement highlighted, noting that the Brent crude price averaged GBP 52.33 ($69.37) per barrel in 2025.
“Operating expenditure fell from GBP 7.8 billion [$10.3 billion] in 2024 to GBP 7.1 billion [$9.4 billion] in 2025, while production rates were steady at approximately 1.1 million boe per day in both years,” it added.
“Production efficiency, a separate performance measure which compares actual production with maximum potential output, increased by one percentage point to 76 percent last year, contributing to the enhanced unit operating cost,” the statement continued.
In a statement posted on its website back in August, the NSTA announced that a new NSTA report at the time showed that North Sea operators produced 21,000 extra boe every day in 2025 “by running their facilities more efficiently and reducing the number of unplanned shutdowns”.
“Production efficiency, which indicates how well companies are performing by comparing actual production with maximum potential output, increased by one percentage point to 76 percent last year,” the statement noted.
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