We can be a world leader in ridding the sea of oil platforms

Decommissioning is a multibillion-dollar opportunity that Scotland should grab, writes Graeme Ferguson

The North Sea is facing one of the biggest challenges in its history – the decommissioning of its inventory of oil and gas fields as the point of ‘Maximum Economic Recovery’ is reached, and production comes to an end.

Over the next 30 years, more than 475 platforms, 10,000km of pipelines and 5,000 wells are expected to be decommissioned in the North Sea alone. Production peaked around the year 1999 and although advances in technology have extended the life of some fields and have enabled new wells to be drilled, more than 200 fields are forecast to be decommissioned within the next seven years.

The need to find effective decommissioning solutions has never been more pressing, particularly considering the role of the taxpayer has in its funding. This is a huge engineering challenge, but one that Scotland is uniquely positioned to meet to be at the forefront of a burgeoning new industry sector with global potential.

To date, it is primarily the major oil companies who have tackled the decommissioning of their own assets in the North Sea.

Worldwide, extensive decommissioning is being undertaken in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The challenges experienced there differ significantly from those of the North Sea, which by contrast has deep water and harsh climatic conditions.

The industry is entering a new era and setting the standard for decommissioning. Both Scotland and the UK are poised to become the home of a flourishing new, multi-billiondollar industrial sector, building on a heritage of engineering innovation and tapping into a resource pool of skilled and experienced oil and gas professionals. However, in order for this to become a reality it is essential that the decommissioning process is efficient and effective, the associated costs are reduced, new commercial models developed, and talent redeployed from exploration and production to gain decommissioning expertise.

Developments in technology, knowledge-sharing and the application of lessons learnt from operators decommissioning first generation platforms are already having an impact and have led to the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), the government body responsible for decommissioning, recently reporting a seven per cent underlying cost reduction on a like-for-like basis compared to its 2017 predictions.

Decommissioning is a specialised activity requiring a specific mind-set and approach. An effective working model is for a specialist decommissioning operator to take control of a field for the last years of its life to gain a thorough knowledge of its infrastructure so that when production comes to an end, a safe, efficient and cost-effective outcome can be achieved.

This is all the more important given the burden the UK Government and the taxpayer is shouldering when it comes to decommissioning.

Through a new business model, Decom Energy is addressing a gap in the market as the first fully outsourced end-to-end, late-life and decommissioning operator in the North Sea. We are challenging the conventional thinking that the company responsible for developing and operating an asset during its productive life should also decommission it. Our subsidiary company, Fairfield Energy, is half way through the plugging and abandonment of the Greater Dunlin Area’s 45 platforms and 16 subsea wells, progressing subsea infrastructure remov-