The emerging decommissioning market on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) will be “exciting opportunity” which will work in tandem with exploration and production in the North Sea, according to the economics director of Oil & Gas UK.
Mike Tholen opened the first session of this year’s Offshore Decommissioning Conference in St Andrews by reminding delegates of the challenges within the field.
The two-day conference will look at comparisons between the UK and countries like Norway and how they are both handling decommissioning business.
It comes as the industry body today published a groundbreaking new report predicting a steady rise in decommissioning work over the coming decade.
Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) said this year’s Decommissioning Insight survey is the first to incorporate the UK and Norwegian markets.
It said £2.1billion was spent on decommissioning in the UK and Norway in 2015, up £500million on the previous year.
Speaking to the conference, Tholen said:“Over the next few days you’ll see a complex picture emerging over a number of markets, the Southern North Sea, which is almost an independent decommissioning market in its own right.
“The rest of the North Sea, the rest of the UK sector of the North Sea is indeed following on behind.
“We’ll also get some insight into what Norway is doing for the first time and start to get an idea that we may have brexited or we may be brexiting but we are part of one big North Sea industry and how that evolves in the years to come will be an exciting opportunity for companies around the North Sea, British ones included.
“There are some commentators that say decommissioning is the end of our industry, I would like to say it is different and it is part of our industry and it’s going to be an exciting part of our industry to come.
“Some like to think that decommissioning overtakes investment as the prime activity. I think the challenge is actually the other way around, how can we keep driving investment and how can we keep focusing on exploration and appraisal.
“My own feeling would be how would an industry look if we spend as much on exploration and appraisal as we are on decommissioning?”
He added the key for decommissioning was “planning ahead” and not “waiting till you get there”.
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