Net Environmental Benefit Analysis
Comparative assessment for those with oil & gas interests, to take into account the environment and ecosystem service benefits and improve decision-making.
NEBA
NEBA is a framework to assess the benefits and gains versus the adverse effects of actions such as decommissioning, remediation and oil spill response.
It is used to compare and rank different management or response alternatives against environmental, socio-economic, safety and feasibility criteria to identify the action with the greatest overall benefit and support defensible and appropriate decisions.
Oil & gas infrastructure can be of great benefit to marine ecosystems.
Ramboll's guide to NEBA
Ramboll's guide to NEBA includes explanations and real-world examples of NEBA applied to
- Oil & gas decommissioning
- Sustainable remediation
- Oil spill response
Oil & gas decommissioning
Ramboll is a world leader in the use of NEBA to determine the environmental, safety, technical, societal and economic costs and benefits of options for decommissioning offshore oil and gas infrastructure.
Platforms and their vertical structure provide a haven and safe breeding site that can help rebuild depleted fish stocks. Full removal of platforms is required under some international conventions, but this can be hazardous, costly, technically challenging and create habitat destruction.
Sustainable remediation
NEBA supports sustainable remediation by identifying solutions that achieve the overall need while reducing human health risk, ecological risk, greenhouse gas generation and cost, and increasing worker safety.
Ramboll has pioneered the use of NEBA for quantifying likely positive and negative impacts of actions and forecasting likely short and long-term effects on natural habitats, land, water resources and site values.
NEBA promotes consideration of the consequences of site clean-up actions and encourages technologies and practices that minimize the environmental footprint.
Oil spill response
NEBA and comparative risk assessment frameworks integrate oil spill science into spill response and preparedness planning. Goals for evaluating oil spill response options:
- Identify resources at risk
- Minimize ecological footprint of spill
- Avoid or minimize environmental consequences of spill event as well as response actions
- Balance tradeoffs between social and environmental considerations
- Adopt strategic approaches that match spill response to environmental conditions
- Optimize efficacy of spill response options and build confidence that best course of action is underway
Related pages
Article: Benefits of offshore infrastructure for marine ecosystems
Ensuring biodiversity and ecosystem services is at the forefront of decommissioning planning
Services: Impact assessment
Our Impact Assessment services are based on both commercial understanding and technical rigour to deliver projects that are advanced, sustainable and valuable to society.
Services: Site solutions
Ramboll engineers, geologists and scientists deliver value-added, site-specific solutions that address all aspects of the remediation process.