Oil giant BP is moving ahead with plans to dismantle the Miller platform in the North Sea.
The group has just submitted a draft decommissioning programme for the field to the UK Government.
The field, 167 miles north-east of Aberdeen, was discovered by BP in 1982.
It came on stream in June 1992 and produced about 345million barrels of oil during its lifetime.
Last oil flowed at the end of 2007.
A spokesman for BP said yesterday that all the wells had been plugged and abandoned, but the platform would not be disappearing in the near future.
The installation will not be dismantled until 2012 or 2013 at the earliest.
After all necessary approvals are gained, the oil company would then start talking to companies about carrying out the decommissioning. The costs for this project, and the timeframe for it to be carried out, will not be known until the contracts are awarded.
The platform, still a base for a helicopter used in BP’s Jigsaw offshore safety scheme, weighs 47,000 tonnes.
The spokesman added: “The decommissioning programme proposes removal of the topsides and the jacket down to the top of the footings and for this material to be returned to shore for reuse, recycling or disposal. The jacket footings are the lower part of the jacket and weigh around 6,500 tonnes.”
The Miller pipelines will remain in place for potential future use.
BP had wanted Miller to play a central role in a world-first “clean” power-station project. These plans were killed off in May 2007, however, after the government further delayed a decision on whether to back the project.
Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, accused Alistair Darling, the trade secretary at the time, of sabotage after BP said it was pulling out of the £600million project, which it had staunchly supported.
The final straw for the Peterhead scheme was Mr Darling’s announcement he had delayed until November 2007 the start of a competition to select a carbon-capture scheme for UK Government support.
BP, a partner in the project with Scottish and Southern Energy and Rio Tinto, said it pulled out with regret. It is understood the consortium had invested £70million in developing the proposal.
The north-east venture would have involved separating gas brought ashore at St Fergus into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
The hydrogen would have been burned at Peterhead power station to produce electricity, while the CO would have been pumped back to Miller.
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