Alongside my colleagues Ken MacDonald, Chris Duff, Malcolm Gunnyeon, Malcolm Mackay and Will Payne, I attended the Offshore Energies UK (OEUK)'s annual legal conference in Aberdeen recently. The event brought together in-house and private practice lawyers, alongside industry professionals, to discuss issues impacting the offshore energy sector.

On the day, there were some interesting conversations on regulatory challenges, sustainability initiatives, the future of legal frameworks in the sector, and GenAI, which was of particular interest to the audience.

The context for the conference was set by Jenny Stanning, External Relations Director at OEUK, who highlighted the work being done by OEUK in engaging with the new UK Government. Government policies on net zero, taxation and economic growth were examined, with OEUK's role in working with government to achieve its stated aims highlighted and championed.

These themes were picked up by Enrique Cornejo, Head of Energy Policy at OEUK, who updated us on the evolving landscape of energy regulation and policy. Carbon capture and storage, and green hydrogen production, were highlighted as two areas of growth, with the UK being in prime position to attract investment for carbon storage projects in depleted oil and gas fields in the North Sea, as well as in the Irish Sea and the English Channel - giving the UK the largest potential storage capacity in Europe.

During a session examining contemporary legal issues in the North Sea, the potential legal issues which arise in the context of decommissioning were discussed - in particular, where assets have been operated under joint operating agreements on behalf of joint ventures, with the operator holding decision making authority on, for example, cessation of production.

A conference for lawyers would not be complete without some black letter law, and case updates on inadvertent waiver on conditions precedent, the binding (or otherwise) nature of heads of terms, force majeure, and the recent decision in R (Finch) v Surrey County Council provided ample opportunity for the attendees to get "stuck in" to some detailed case law.

But it was a session on generative AI (GenAI) that seemed to produce the most enthusiastic response in the room. Demonstrations of Harvey, and guidance on getting the most out of AI by using carefully prepared prompts (i.e. instructions) showed those attending that, far from replacing lawyers, GenAI can be a powerful tool to assist with day-to-day tasks, leaving more time for complex or strategic work.

In keeping with that philosophy, we decided to put GenAI to the test and asked Microsoft Copilot to produce first drafts of two of the paragraphs in this blog. It did a decent job, and was a helpful first step, but as with all content produced by GenAI, it was not the finished product and human input was then needed to check and revise the text for accuracy, and to adapt the tone and style.

Can you spot where GenAI was used? Send me a message on LinkedIn if you think you can identify the paragraphs in question!

I look forward to attending next year's conference. As ever, it will be interesting to see what the next 12 months bring for the offshore energy sector.

Contributors

Fiona Chute

Senior Associate