People and Community

Trust and understanding with the communities in which we operate are important parts of our approach to exploration and production. We engage with stakeholders to ensure our operations do not detriment local communities and offer our expertise to benefit local initiatives.

Terschelling

In 2023, Kistos was re-awarded the exclusive rights for the exploration, development and production of natural gas from blocks M10a and M11 in the North Sea, off the Dutch coast. The fields are close to Terschelling, one of the West Frisian Islands, and to one of the network of Natura 2000 conservation areas that protect threatened species and habitats across Europe.

Kistos worked with local residents and environmental groups to shape our plans for extracting gas from under the island. The gas platform used will be small, unmanned and, Q10-A, the M10a/M11 platform, will use solar panels and wind turbines to generate all its own energy from renewable sources.

We plan to support the local economy by using suppliers and maintenance companies from the area. We will also limit flaring in order to minimise the risk to local bird populations and we will use the best available techniques to safeguard seals and other marine life. Kistos undertook a comprehensive stakeholder engagement programme with the Terschelling community to share information about our plans, incorporating presentations, open days, TV interviews and newspaper articles. The community now understands our aims, supports our approach and trusts us to act responsibly.

Porthos CCS Project

Kistos is sharing its expertise to support the Porthos Project in the Netherlands, which aims to store CO2 in a depleted gas field beneath the North Sea. Such carbon capture, utilisation and storage initiatives are a key component of the Netherlands’ energy transition strategy. Two Kistos engineers will continue to help the team from EBN convert the former gas platform.

Our knowledge will be invaluable in upgrading the Porthos platform to match the capabilities of Q10-A in terms of renewable power generation, automated systems and safeguarding controls. Construction of the necessary infrastructure is due to start this year and the system is expected to be operational from 2026.

Workplace culture

Our revised ESG goals now include our ambition to foster a culture that encourages collaboration, flexibility and fairness to enable all employees to contribute to their potential and increase retention.

We have retained a flexible working environment for all employees. However, we remain mindful of the need for direct interactions and networking to support the professional development of our people.

We encourage employees to seek out relevant training courses that will further their professional development and provide benefits to the Group. We will cover the cost of such courses and grant employees time off to attend courses that are relevant or appropriate to the role.

Diversity, equality and inclusion

The importance we place on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) is reflected in two of our ESG goals. As well as recruiting from a wide range of candidates to increase diversity of thinking and perspective, we also intend to identify and break down systemic barriers to full inclusion by embedding diversity and inclusion in policies and practices and equipping leaders with the ability to manage diversity and be accountable for the results. When hiring, we do not discriminate on grounds of disability, ethnicity or gender; and offer the same access to training to all employees regardless of background or situation.

As we have a relatively small number of employees across the organisation, each role is unique within its region. It is therefore not meaningful to measure the pay gap across genders. When seeking to fill new roles, we offer remuneration packages commensurate with level, experience and technical expertise required, and do not consider the gender of the applicant.

Human rights

Kistos recognises its responsibility to respecting human rights in all aspects of doing business and we have embedded human rights in our Code of Business Conduct and in our Modern Slavery Statement. We believe that an integrated approach to human rights, embedded into our policies, business systems and processes, allows us to efficiently and effectively manage human rights within our existing ways of working. Our approach applies to all our employees and contractors. We focus on four areas where respect for human rights is particularly critical to the way we operate: labour rights, communities, supply chains and security. We have community feedback mechanisms at all our major facilities. These mechanisms enable employees, people in the communities where we operate, contractors and any third party to raise concerns, so they can be resolved, enabling us to meet our commitment to provide access to remedy.