Policy paper

Environmental permitting of onshore oil and/or gas facilities

This regulatory position statement enables onshore oil and gas sites to operate whilst permit variations and/or new applications are determined.

• From: Environment Agency
• Published: 1 April 2015
• Last updated: 22 May 2017 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on 18 January 2022

This regulatory position statement is no longer required.

Applies to England

Documents

Environmental permitting of existing onshore oil and/or gas facilities: Regulatory Position Statement

Ref: LIT 10119

PDF, 289 KB, 3 pages

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Details

Since 1 October 2013 the Environment Agency have taken the view that operators of new onshore oil and/or gas exploration or appraisal facilities require environmental permits where activities include:

• the management of extractive waste, whether or not this involves a waste facility (as a mining waste operation)
• flaring of waste gas using a flare which has the capacity to incinerate over 10 tonnes a day (as an installation)
• a water discharge activity
• a groundwater activity, such as an indirect discharge of pollutants as part of high pressure high volume hydraulic fracturing
• waste being managed that meets the thresholds for radioactivity set out in the 2010 Regulations (as a radioactive substances activity)

We now consider that the same environmental permits should be required for existing onshore oil and/or gas facilities, in addition to the permit required for crude oil unloading, handling or storage, or treatment.

Published 1 April 2015
Last updated 22 May 2017 + show all updates

1. 22 May 2017

   Updated RPS 392: Environmental permitting of existing onshore oil and/or gas facilities.

2. 18 May 2016

   Minor changes to the Regulatory Position Statement to reflect the changes to the onshore oil and gas re-permitting project timeline

3. 1 April 2015

   First published.