Decommissioning firm Petrodec says it has begun work on the Amethyst A2D platform, marking its first foray into operatorship.
The decom specialist, in which Anglo-French E&P group Perenco is an investor but not the parent company, became operator of the Amethyst A2D installation in May.
In an 8 September statement the company said work has formally commenced to decommission the platform, located on the Amethyst gas field in the UK Southern North Sea.
The platform, which was installed in 1989, is currently being made hydrocarbon free and the wells plugged and abandoned (P&A), Petrodec said.
After the completion of P&A and topside preparations, the work programme will consist of skidding the topside off the jacket, sea fastening and a rig move before final dismantling is carried out in Vlissingen harbour in the Netherlands, where other Amethyst platforms have also been decommissioned.
Petrodec will use its own vessel, the Energy Endeavour (ERDA), to carry out the project. The ERDA is a modified versatile jack-up, which will replace the traditional practice of using a drilling rig and a heavy lift vessel (HLV).
Amethyst sits around 25miles from the Easington Terminal on the Yorkshire coast. Perenco took over operatorship of Amethyst from BP in 2012, having been first discovered by Britoil in the 1970s.
The group received the green light from the UK Government in 2020 to remove the four Amethyst field platforms.
Petrodec’s work on Amethyst A2D follows the successful decommissioning of Amethyst B1D, which was completed in December 2021.
Petrodec general manager Rainier Verhulst said: “Over the past three years, Petrodec has established itself as a leading, innovative, provider of decommissioning services. The award of operatorship for the decommissioning of Amethyst A2D by Perenco UK is a major milestone and is testament to our track record of safe and efficient projects and earning the trust of not only our client but also the relevant authorities.”