Consultant to develop and deliver a report, tools and guidance to improve knowledge of future revenue from oil and gas pipelines

Descriptions

Crown Estate Scotland (CES) manages sustainable development on Scotland’s seabed out to 12nm on behalf of Scottish Ministers. CES is not a regulator but performs a landownership role to grant access rights in the form of a seabed lease or a license once all necessary statutory consents have been secured for a development proposal. CES has a duty under the Scottish Crown Estate Act 2019 to maintain and enhance value of the marine estate and to manage it in a way that will contribute to improvements in economic development, regeneration, social and environmental wellbeing for Scotland. Doing so effectively must incorporate measures to ensure that developers and businesses recognise Scotland’s seabed as a shared public space that supports multiple and diverse interests. Its sustainable use must therefore extend beyond compliance with development and sector specific regulation to include responsible care and treatment of a public asset. Energy and Infrastructure assets which are held by Crown Estate Scotland include offshore wind, tidal, wave, CCUS and cables and pipelines. Crown Estate Scotland provide licences to give developers the property rights they need to lay, maintain and operate cables and pipelines on the seabed up to 12 nautical miles from the shore. This includes oil and gas pipelines, electricity and telecommunication cables. The oil and gas pipelines sector is a significant source of rental revenue to CES underpinned by 23 hydrocarbon pipeline agreements, which run along the seabed out to 12 nautical miles. In most cases under these agreements, rent is invoiced annually in advance, the total rent received depends on the number of operational pipelines. We are seeking external advice to improve our knowledge of oil and gas pipelines, specifically to understand the current and future rental revenue/value to Crown Estate Scotland, taking into consideration the future decline of the North Sea oil and gas sector and the subsequent decommissioning of assets.