Around 1,400 UKCS wells will have to be abandoned over the next 10 years alone at a cost of £7-8billion of which the UK taxpayer will fund around half, according to Malcolm Banks, wells solution centre manager at the Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC).
With UK decommissioning expenditure estimated at £55.7 billion, it’s no surprise that this offers a significant opportunity for many companies. From a well abandonment perspective alone, activity is set to increase from £1.2bn in 2016 to an expected £1.5–2bn per year through to 2025, according to Oil and Gas UK (OGUK).
For the uninitiated, there may not be any obvious connections between North Sea decommissioning and Crossfit – a high-intensity fitness programme – however Oil and Gas UK’s (OGUK’s) new decommissioning manager sees things differently.
Buoyancy systems, laser cutting tools and thermite plugs all feature in a combined effort by industry and academia to turn the north-east into the world’s leading provider of decommissioning technology.
By Howard Johnson, managing director, Blaze Manufacturing Solutions
Is decommissioning and the demise of oil and gas being heralded prematurely within the UKCS, with prospects recently announced onshore near Gatwick and west of Shetland through BP and Total? Fracking in Lancashire has been given the go ahead and it won’t be long before we see this in the central belt of Scotland, utilising Grangemouth and extending its life even further.
Ten projects which could generate more than 600 jobs through increased productivity and economic growth have been identified by Shetland Islands Council (SIC) ahead of negotiations with government on securing an islands deal.
The chairman of Lerwick Port Authority (LPA) has hailed the growing contribution of cruise ship visits as the organisation released its annual review, showing a steep drop in profits and a decline in turnover last year.
By Mike Tholen – upstream policy director, Oil & Gas UK
It’s a busy week for decommissioning with our London business briefing focusing on this emerging sector of the industry and we’re also anticipating the publication of the Oil and Gas Authority’s (OGA) 2018 UKCS Decommissioning Cost Estimate report.
In the year since the Brent Delta platform came ashore for dismantling, its past and present owners have found there isn’t much that can’t be reused or given away.
The head of decommissioning at the Oil and Gas Authority has said operators remain “very uncertain” over their costs for shutting down North Sea assets.