Decommissioning projects in the UK North Sea could be a strain on the supply chain during peaks in the workload in the coming years, an expert said yesterday.
Alex Kemp, professor of petroleum economics at Aberdeen University, said more than 600 fields could be decommissioned between now and 2042, but there would be busy and quieter periods.
Speaking at the ninth annual North Sea decommissioning conference in the Ardoe House Hotel, at Blairs, near Aberdeen, he said the projects could be worth more than £35billion, with half of it paid for by taxpayers. His figures are based on a “central case” oil price of $90 a barrel and come from research findings – due to be published soon – on prospects for the UK North Sea.
Prof Kemp told the Press and Journal the forecast to 2042 included work already sanctioned plus new projects. He said: “We have updated our estimates of what the decommissioning costs might be, when they will come along, how many fields could be decommissioned and which ones.
“A lot of these (600-plus) fields are quite small and there will be some subsea systems, but there will also be a lot of very substantial fields decommissioned between now and 2042.”
He said 2015-25 was likely to be a particularly busy time for decommissioning, with some larger and more expensive platforms being dismantled around then.
The glut of big decomissioning projects during this spell could cause problems for the supply chain, he added.
Prof Kemp said the biggest expenditure would be on the bigger fields like Brent and Ninian in the northern North Sea, with southern basin work being “relatively low cost”.
“It is a large, growing market but there will be peaks and troughs,” he added.
The conference, which continues today, is organised by DecomWorld.
It also features presentations by oil and gas operators including Statoil, Shell, Premier Oil, BP and Chevron plus several decommissioning project case studies.
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