Statutory Instrument 2026/846 starts the next phase of the Energy Act 2023 on 30 September 2026. Signed by Michael Shanks at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on 16 July 2026, the Energy Act 2023 (Commencement No. 5, Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026 bring section 299(3) to (7) into force. According to legislation.gov.uk, this is the fifth set of commencement regulations made under the 2023 Act. The immediate effect is a change to the legal basis for charging certain fees linked to offshore abandonment programmes under the Petroleum Act 1998.
The commenced provisions remove the Secretary of State's existing fee-charging powers under sections 29 and 34 of the Petroleum Act 1998 and repeal the power to make related regulations. They also alter how expenditure incurred under section 33 may be recovered. This sits alongside the newer charging model introduced through section 38C of the 1998 Act. In policy terms, the instrument completes part of the move from the older fee framework to the replacement regime created by the Energy Act 2023.
The main point for operators is that the switch is not absolute on day one. Regulation 3 preserves the old law for a defined group of live cases, even after 30 September 2026. That means sections 29(5) and 34(4) of the Petroleum Act 1998, together with the Offshore (Oil and Gas) Installation and Pipeline Abandonment Fees Regulations 2012, continue to govern fee handling where the relevant procedural steps were taken before the appointed day.
For initial submissions, the saving applies where the case concerns a relevant abandonment programme and, before 30 September 2026, the Secretary of State had either received a request to determine the fee under regulation 3(1)(a) of the 2012 Regulations or published a draft of the programme. As the explanatory material notes, draft abandonment programmes may be published on gov.uk before the formal section 29 submission is made. Where either trigger has been met, the fee must still be determined and notified under the 2012 Regulations and paid under section 29(5) of the Petroleum Act 1998. The date that matters is the status of the case before the transition, not the date on which payment later falls due.
A parallel saving applies to proposals to revise an existing relevant abandonment programme. If the Secretary of State received a request before 30 September 2026 to determine the fee for that revision under regulation 3(1)(b) of the 2012 Regulations, the legacy charging route stays in place. For those cases, fee determination and notification remain tied to the 2012 Regulations, with payment continuing under section 34(4) of the 1998 Act. This gives operators and advisers a clear legal test for revision work already in motion.
The scope of the saving is narrower than the broader decommissioning regime. The Regulations define a relevant abandonment programme by reference to offshore installations and submarine pipelines, but exclude carbon capture and storage pipelines. The explanatory note goes further by stating that the 2012 Regulations do not apply to carbon storage installations or to carbon capture and storage pipelines. The carry-over therefore applies to the legacy oil and gas fee framework, rather than to every asset covered by wider offshore energy legislation.
For industry teams, the operational task is record-keeping. A project file will need to show whether a fee determination request had been received before 30 September 2026 and, for some section 29 cases, whether a draft programme had already been published. This makes the instrument less about changing decommissioning duties themselves and more about legal continuity during the charging transition. The message from legislation.gov.uk is straightforward: the old fee rules are ending, but cases already inside the system will not be forced into the new regime midway through the process.