Decom North Sea’s primary role as a member organisation is – of course – to bring value to our members; we’re here to support the supply chain in winning work, and to help operators meet their regulatory obligations and cost control challenges. A clear understanding of the decommissioning marketplace is critical to both parties, if efficient, cost-effective and environmentally-sound decommissioning activity is to be undertaken.
Therefore, one of our key roles is to bring these organisations together, facilitating the conversations, helping all parties understand each other and their requirements. We do this via a range of networking and educational events, projects and initiatives. With more than 380 member companies spanning the whole sector and overseas locations this demands a high degree of sensitivity and emotional intelligence to ensure a wide range of needs and expectations are met. Another example of the impact we are having on the sector is our development and provision of good practice guidelines, such as Decom North Sea’s Late Life Planning Portal (L2P2); a free-to-access collation of good practices that operators can use to streamline their planning process, and the service sector can reference to understand operator needs and requirements.
Decommissioning teams work in an incredibly challenging technical, commercial and regulatory environment, with competing priorities. Thus, with considerable support from Scottish Enterprise, L2P2 was created by Decom North Sea and a group of dedicated industry volunteers.
The overarching objective has been to provide assistance to the growing decommissioning sector when identifying, scheduling and prioritising the key decisions that need to be made in preparation for decommissioning of North Sea assets, and we’re delighted to report that the first 18 months of L2P2 have seen it develop into an invaluable tool. It continues to evolve through the capture and sharing of good practices, learnings, and the effective management of risks and opportunities associated with decommissioning projects and programmes.
Since L2P2 launched, more than 3,500 users across 70 countries have accessed the tools and lessons it holds, along with the overarching framework that documents and illustrates the challenges and the decisions required across the decommissioning planning timeframe.
However, we don’t rest upon our laurels; 18 months in, and we have assessed user feedback and the user statistics since L2P2’s inception. From these – and an analysis of the tool and lessons learned from submissions to date – we have been able to identify a number of improvements which will enhance overall user experience.
To do this, and to enhance the relevance of the deliverables from our other projects, we are embarking on a programme of engagement with the next generation of industry personnel. Whether it’s providing student placements, longer-term paid internships or inviting engaged individuals to join our project work groups, we recognise that Millennials bring new and different skills, knowledge and approaches to communication. We need to engage and utilise these approaches to ensure the latest generation in the workplace is ready to start shaping the future.
In other words, Decom North Sea is at the forefront of developing and defining what can still be considered an evolving sector – and in doing so, we’re taking our members’ futures very seriously.
Decom Offshore, Decom North Sea’s annual conference and exhibition, takes place on May 23, 2018. Visit www.decomnorthsea.com for further details.
Pamela Ogilvie is business manager at Decom North Sea
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