North Sea decommissioning is being held back by a reluctance to accept oil and gas installations will not last forever, an industry expert said yesterday.
David Haywood, project adviser at STC Global, an Aberdeen-based design and learning solutions firm, said decommissioning was no longer a “dirty word” and companies should not be embarrassed their assets will cease to make money at some point.
Mr Haywood, who has worked for Mobil, Shell and CNR International in an oil and gas career spanning more than 20 years, also said fears that an acceleration in decommissioning could leave viable oil and gas reserves stranded were overstated.
Private equity firm Lime Rock has splurged £50million to launch a new North Sea company that specialises in both plugging and renewing old subsea wells.
Shell is considering the option of leaving the massive subsea concrete jackets for its Brent platforms in place, as removing the 300,000 tonne structures may be more hazardous than leaving them where they are.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in the US said owners of operation rights will be required to submit their expenditures for decommissioning of wells, platforms and other facilities.
The move will affect sites on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) as part of the final decommissioning costs rule.
Subsea 7 will provide decommissioning services for the second phase of Centrica’s Rose and Stamford gas field decommissioning programmes, located in the southern North Sea.
Amec Foster Wheeler is ‘uniquely placed’ for decommissioning work in the North Sea oil and gas industry thanks to its experience in the nuclear sector, an international conference heard today.
UK offshore oil and gas industry trade bodies Oil & Gas UK and Decom North Sea have pledge to deliver more joined-up working to deliver a more effective decommissioning agenda for the North Sea.
The UK oil and gas industry’s decommissioning sector is growing at a steady pace, with total expenditure expected to hit £16.9billion over the next decade, a new study shows.
Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) raised the forecast from £14.6billion a year ago, citing an influx of 47 new projects into its 2015 Decommissioning Insight survey.
A total of 79 platforms are now expected to be removed across the UK continental shelf by 2024, according to the poll, which was launched at the Offshore Decommissioning Conference in St Andrews.
Industry bodies Oil & Gas UK and Decom North Sea have published a report to provide businesses with guidance on good practice in identifying, qualifying and adopting new technologies used in the decommissioning of offshore assets.
Gulf Marine Services said a healthy order book provided cause for optimism in the self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs) serving the offshore oil, gas and renewable energy sectors.
The oil price crash is expected to usher in a “decommissioning glut” in the North Sea, new research has revealed.
Delegates at Offshore Europe this week heard that there has been little evidence so far of early decommissioning of North Sea fields rendered uneconomic by the falling price of a barrel of oil.
But research firm Wood Mackenzie has estimated that there will be 50 fields facing early shutdown and dismantling due to low oil prices over the next five years. This is above and beyond the estimated 139 fields what have been scheduled for dismantling as they reach the end of their natural lives.
Aberdeen-based Xodus Group has been awarded a contract with Nexen to provide Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) services in support of the decommissioning of the Ettrick and Blackbird fields in the central North Sea.
Operators have been urged to sell ageing oil and gas assets but retain decommissioning liabilities worth billions in order to avoid the threat of early shut downs in the North Sea.
Analysts at KPMG have warned that oil and gas operators as well as the new Oil and Gas Autority (OGA) need to approach decommissioning in a new way or risk failing to “maximise economic recovery” as recommended by industry veteran, Sir Ian Wood.
In the report, KPMG said many North Sea firms lacked the capability to undertake decommissioning or were “poorly suited” to managing late life assets. This would only be worsened by the possibility of a “ large wave” of decomissioning projects going ahead by 2020, driving up costs and increasing the burden on skills.
A £15million investment at Montrose harbour will help it compete for lucrative offshore oil and gas decommissioning work in years to come, according to the port's operator.
Two specialist decommissioning firms - one from the offshore and the other from the nuclear sector - are to work together to share each other's expertise.
This image shows the Paragon B391 drilling rig leaving Rotterdam as it made its way to Centrica’s decommissioning projects in the southern North Sea gas basin.
The photo, which was captured by a drone, shows the rig as it travelled to the site where it will carry out well plugging and abandonment activities on two single-well subsea fields.
Paragon will work on the Stamford gas and Rose decommissioning project.
ConocoPhillips has confirmed it is behind a new contract to support decommissioning activity in the UK North Sea.
It was keeping quiet about its involvement on Monday, when Abu Dhabi-based Gulf Marine Services (GMS) said one of its large class advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs) was moving from well service and maintenance work to help with decommissioning activity this summer.
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Houston-based ConocoPhillips the GMS Endurance, gave more details.
She said: “The GMS Endurance is currently on contract to ConocoPhillips UK, carrying out maintenance work in the southern North Sea (SNS).
“It will move across to provide support for ongoing decommissioning work at the Viking location later this summer.
“ConocoPhillips is currently pursuing a planned and phased decommissioning programme for the southern North Sea.
“Our initial focus is on the Viking area, where well plug and abandonment work started last year.”
She added: “ConocoPhillips has a number of gas fields in the SNS that are approaching the end of their natural lives.
Energy logistics provider Peterson has teamed up with Veolia to develop a £1million decommissioning facility in Great Yarmouth.
Peterson was awarded £70,000 from New Anglia LEP’s flagship Growing Business Fund, to help establish the new facility.
