Drone sightings reported near North Sea installations

Reports of suspicious drone activity near drilling platforms in the North Sea have been passed to the security services.

Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said there had been "drone sightings in proximity to offshore energy structures".

The industry body described the incidents as "concerning", but added they "did not threaten the safety of the offshore installations".

Health and safety manager for offshore infrastructure Graham Skinner said: "Fortunately, these events remain very rare, however we remain vigilant and prepared to respond to any eventuality."

He added that OEUK welcomed proposals for a "reporting portal for suspicious activity" but was aware that could take "time to develop".

"In the interim, we have developed in collaboration with the police and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero guidance for offshore installations that details what to look out for, what information to gather and who to report it to when events occur," he said.

Skinner added that, due to the remote nature of platforms, these incidents stood out.

"Our platforms are 100, 150 miles out in the middle of the sea, so you don't typically have many neighbours - you don't have people coming and visiting unless they are there for a very good reason," he said.

"When the crews spot lights in the sky, or things moving around, suspicious activity in general - it's very obvious that it's out of place.

"It may well be that they want to expose weaknesses or test our responses, they may even just be filming to see what is going on."

Dan Marks, research fellow in energy security at the Royal United Services Institute, said reports claimed drones appeared from unknown locations, came near to platforms, and then disappeared again.

"Part of the challenge is that we really don't know how often this is happening," he added.

He said the North Sea is not currently facing the kind of sabotage seen in the Baltic, where pipelines and cables have been targeted, and drones and ships spotted here were more likely to be looking for information.

He said: "At the moment it concerns more about reconnaissance-shaping activities, ships that are – fairly clearly or otherwise – mapping out critical infrastructure, subsea infrastructure and may pose a risk.

"You don't know what they've been doing, you don't know what they've put out into the water."

Marks says the war in Ukraine has highlighted the vulnerability of energy infrastructure, while drones are now being manufactured at a "massive scale", making them relatively cheap and opening up the possibility of attacks by non-state actors, and an increasing range of targets.

The UK and Nato is concerned that surveillance of Western undersea cables and pipelines is aimed at giving Moscow a modern warfare head start, should hostilities ever break out.

Earlier this month the UK government said three Russian submarines conducted a covert operation over cables and pipelines in waters north of the UK, something Russia has denied.