An Assessment of the Environmental Hazard Associated with the Discharge of Production Water from a North Sea Oil Platform Based on Laboratory Bioassays with a Calanoid Copepod - Acartia Tonsa (DANA)

The routine operation of offshore oil production platforms results in the discharge to the sea of water after it has been separated from oil produced from the reservoir. Recent attention has focussed on the need to assess the toxic hazard of this production water’ to the marine environment. Shell UK Exploration and Production has initiated and implemented a research programme to assess the environmental hazard of discharges from its production platforms in the UK sector of the North Sea.