UK Emissions Trading Scheme: offshore installations – location codes
Summary
DESNZ published UN location codes for offshore installations as part of extending the UK ETS to maritime activities from 2026. The guidance lists installations that will be subject to carbon pricing under the amended trading scheme. This supports implementation of the draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026.
Why it matters
This is administrative infrastructure for carbon pricing expansion rather than electricity market reform. The ETS extension to maritime creates compliance costs for offshore oil and gas operators but does not directly affect electricity generation or grid operations.
Key facts
- •UN location codes published March 17, 2026
- •Supports draft order extending UK ETS to maritime activities
- •Codes originally published by UNECE January 15, 2025
- •Rail and airport terminals removed after coordinate verification
Timeline
Areas affected
Related programmes
Memo
This list sets out the UN codes for trade and transport locations (UN/LOCODEs) for offshore installations. The information was originally published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on 15 January 2025. Upon review, rail and airport terminals were removed where coordinate checks confirmed these locations did not correspond to offshore installations. It is published alongside a piece of draft legislation, the ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) (Extension to Maritime Activities) Order 2026’. This 2026 order seeks to amend the ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Order 2020’ by inserting a new Schedule 2A. Paragraph 6(3) of new Schedule 2A intends to identify offshore installations by reference to UN/LOCODEs. --- The UN approved location codes are presented in 11 columns, with the following content (column designations between quotes): ## 1.1 Column ‘LOCODE’ The 2 first digits in ‘LOCODE’ column indicates the country in which the place is located – GB for the United Kingdom. This value concurs with the ISO 3166 alpha-2 Country Code. In the next part of the ‘LOCODE’ column you can find a 3-character code for the location. The 3-character code element for the location will normally comprise 3 letters. However, where all permutations available for a country have been exhausted, the numerals 2-9 may also be used. Thus, a complete UN/LOCODE is a combination of a 2-character country code and a 3-character location code. For ease of reading, the country and location code elements are usually separated by a space. In actual use, this space could be suppressed. ## 1.2 Column ‘Name’ Column ‘Name’ shows the names of the locations which have been allocated a UN/ LOCODE. A place name may be followed, after a comma sign, by an indication of geographical or administrative significance, such as the name of an island on which the place is located, for example Rhubodach, Isle of Bute. There may be subordinate entities under a place name, for example, different airports serving the same main location, outlying ports, freight terminals. If a separate code element has been assigned to such a location, the name of the sublocation is added after the main name, separated by a hyphen (-), for example GB LHR London-Heathrow Apt The sublocation name is also listed in its proper alphabetic name order place, followed by an oblique stroke (slash) (/) and the name of the main place to which it belongs, for example GB LHR Heathrow Apt/London. Abbreviations used in Column 2 include: | Abbreviation | Meaning | | --- | --- | | Apt | for Airport | | I. | for Island(s) | | Pt | for Port | | St | for Saint | ## 1.3 Column ‘SubDiv’ (Subdivision) Column ‘Subdivision’ is intended to contain the ISO 1-3 character alphabetic and/or numeric code for the administrative division of the country concerned (state, province, department, etc), as included in International Standard ISO 3166-2/1998 and when deemed desirable to enhance the use of the code, or when requested by the country concerned. The country code element is not shown in this column. Only the latter part of the complete ISO 3166-2 code element (after the hyphen) is shown, as a qualifier to the location name. ## 1.4 Column ‘Function’ This column contains a 8-digit function classifier code for the location, where: | Value | Location | | --- | --- | | 0 | A value ‘0’ in the first position specifies that the functional use of a location is not known and is to be specified | | 1 | Specifies that the location is a Port, as defined in UN/ECE Recommendation 16 | | 2 | Specifies that the location is a Rail terminal | | 3 | Specifies that the location is a Road terminal | | 4 | Specifies that the location is an Airport | | 5 | Specifies that the location is a Postal exchange office | | 6 | Value reserved for multimodal functions, ICDs etc | | 7 | Value reserved for fixed transport functions (for example, oil platform) | | B | Specifies that the location is Border crossing | ## 1.5 Column ‘Status’ This column is intended to indicate the status of the entry by a 2-character code, for example, whether approved by government, by customs, or based on a user requirement not necessarily recognised by an authority. It is also intended to show the status of checking, for example, that function indicators are not verified. The following codes are used at present: | Code | Meaning | | --- | --- | | AA | Approved by competent national government agency | | AC | Approved by Customs Authority | | AF | Approved by national facilitation body | | AI | Code adopted by international organisation (IATA or ECLAC) | | AS | Approved by national standardisation body | | RL | Recognised location - Existence and representation of location name confirmed by check against nominated gazetteer or other reference work | | RN | Request from credible national sources for locations in their own country | | RQ | Request under consideration | | RR | Request rejected | | QQ | Original entry not verified since date indicated | | XX | Entry that will be removed from the next issue of UN/LOCODE | ## 1.6 Column ‘IATA’ The IATA code for the location if different from location code in column LOCODE (second part of the code). ## 1.7 Column ‘Coordinates’ This column contains the geographical coordinates (latitude/longitude) of the location, if there is any. In order to avoid unnecessary use of non-standard characters and space, the following standard presentation is used: 0000lat 00000long (lat - Latitude: N or S ; long – Longitude: W or E, only one digit, capital letter) Where the last two rightmost digits refer to minutes and the first two or three digits refer to the degrees for latitude and longitude respectively. In addition, you must specify N or S for latitude and W or E for longitude, as appropriate.