Documentation regarding Harbour Energy: EIR release

Information requested

All documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about Harbour Energy, between November 15 2025 and February 15 2026.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations.

We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA. This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of thi case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. On reviewing materials within the scope of your request, exceptions have been applied in line with the regulations. The exceptions applied have been set out below.

To ensure the information is relevant we have interpreted the request to include documentation that contains correspondence (including briefing materials and meeting minutes), analysis, which are specifically about the company Harbour Energy, or minutes and notes from meetings where Harbour Energy have attended and contributed. This will not include correspondence/documents where Harbour Energy are only referenced and are not the subject, and other document types that are not deemed about Harbour Energy, which includes documents in support of individual chemical permitting assessments, produced water modelling, and permitting advice to the regulator. Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to advise you that as regulation of oil and gas industry is a reserved matter documentation related to oil and gas offshore activities are available from the regulator.

An exception under regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs [Substantial Prejudice to Confidentiality of Commercial Information] applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test' and, taking into account all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. The information relates to particular correspondence between Scottish Government officials and Harbour Energy relating to correspondence around the Acorn Project partners. This exception applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the confidentiality of commercial information provided by the third party and thus cause substantial harm to their commercial interests.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) [Internal Communications] applies to some of the information requested because it relates to internal communications. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test' and, taking into account all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. The information withheld relates to particular elements of briefing materials for Scottish Government Ministers relating to wider energy policy. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs [Personal Information] applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202600515710 - Information Released - Annex

File type

PDF

File size

1.2 MB