Exposing the Environmental Costs of Offshore Oil: <i>Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Oil Slicks, and Flaring</i>

Despite the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate climate change, the global offshore oil and gas (O&amp;G) industry continues to develop around the world. While the number of offshore structures is relatively stable, the industry is poised for rapid growth and is increasing its use of Floating Storage and Offloading, Floating Production Storage and Offloading, Floating Liquefied Natural Gas, and Floating Storage Regasification Unit vessels (collectively FxOs) to extract, produce, and store oil and gas. These FxOs and traditional O&amp;G fixed infrastructure pose significant risks to both immediate and long-term climate and conservation goals, through a combination of oil pollution, methane release, and natural gas flaring, as well as the net GHG footprint required to operate and maintain these structures and vessels. In this report, we assess the offshore O&amp;G Industry’s environmental footprint. We highlight 20 offshore oil facilities that stood out in satellite imagery for the frequency and extent of oil pollution events. These structures were responsible for 228 oil slicks, amounting to at least 295,000 gallons over a 16 month interval from June 2023 to October 2024, with individual structures likely producing as many as 175 slicks during that period. Additionally, this paper begins to uncover the carbon footprint of the offshore oil industry, including CO₂ emissions associated with the transport of O&amp;G at sea and quantifying frequency of methane flaring. We found that offshore oil facilities were visited at least 40K times by vessels, and these vessel visits were responsible for at least 9 million tons of CO₂ emissions in 2023. That same year, 23.1 BCM of methane were flared by offshore oil facilities, resulting in 58.7 million metric tons of CO₂e (CO₂ equivalent) emissions. The results of this analysis can be used by resource managers and environmental advocates to enforce marine protections and monitor progress towards meeting climate goals.