Oceana UK v Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero & Anor

In a multi-stage consenting process, an appropriate assessment must address adverse effects that are known or sufficiently identifiable at the relevant stage. Effects which cannot yet be meaningfully assessed may be deferred, provided that assessment is updated with increasing specificity at later stages and protected sites remain safeguarded.

The precautionary principle requires consideration of unintended accident risks, but a regulator may assess their significance at a later project stage where the evidence reasonably supports the conclusion that licensing alone presents no meaningful risk to site integrity. Climate change impacts on protected features must be considered at an appropriate level of generality where site-specific evidence is unavailable. The duty under regulation 5 of the Offshore Petroleum Activities (Conservation of Habitats) Regulations 2001 does not require assessment of global greenhouse-gas effects that cannot be attributed to particular protected sites.

Oceana UK sought judicial review of three appropriate assessments prepared for the 33rd Seaward Oil and Gas Licensing Round. The assessments supported the Secretary of State’s agreement to the grant of licences by the Oil and Gas Authority under regulation 5 of the Offshore Petroleum Activities (Conservation of Habitats) Regulations 2001.

The claim challenged the assessments on grounds concerning accident risks, climate change, cumulative and in-combination effects, reasons for departing from advice given by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and the treatment of straight-to-second-term licences. The central question was whether the assessments lawfully applied the precautionary principle within a multi-stage licensing and consenting process.

1. Outcome. Permission was granted to amend the claim to add Ground 6, but all grounds were rejected and the claim was dismissed.
2. Applicable standard. The court’s role was supervisory. It was not to undertake its own appropriate assessment. Where the competent authority understood its statutory duty, intervention required a public-law error, applying the ordinary Wednesbury standard with suitably exacting scrutiny of scientific material.
3. Accidents. The exclusion of accidental events merely because they were not intended or included in the work programme would have been a rudimentary error. However, the assessments recognised the risk of spills and discharges, considered prevention, response and remediation, and relied on the detailed OESEA4 assessment and regulatory controls. The conclusion that licensing alone presented no meaningful risk of adverse effects on site integrity was reasonably open to the decision-maker.
4. Climate change. The assessments lawfully considered the existing and likely future effects of climate change on marine habitats and species. Given the absence of site-specific evidence, it was permissible to reach general rather than definitive conclusions. The absence of assessment of direct and downstream greenhouse-gas emissions did not create a gap under regulation 5, whose focus was the effect of activities on identified protected sites. Finch concerned the wider statutory scheme for environmental impact assessment.
5. Staged and in-combination assessment. The licensing scheme was a multi-stage consent procedure. Effects had to be assessed at each relevant stage to the extent possible on the precision of the plan, with increasing specificity later. Uncertainty about later in-combination effects was not determinative where the first-stage activities were assessed, the uncertainty could be resolved through later consents, and protected sites would not be exposed to adverse effects.
6. Reasons and straight-to-second-term licences. The AA reports and OPRED’s response gave cogent reasons for departing from the JNCC’s advice. Reasons could properly be found in direct communications with the expert body as part of an iterative process. The decision to assess only initial-term activities for straight-to-second-term licences was legally justified by the uncertainty of future development proposals.

First-instance judicial review. The judgment records no prior appellate decision in this litigation.