Late life & decommissioning
100 offshore platforms and 5,700km of pipeline are forecast to be decommissioned or reused over the next decade on the UK Continental Shelf.
With the North Sea Transition Authority estimating the total cost of oil and gas decommissioning to be £51bn there is a huge opportunity for the industry to deliver technologies to drive an efficient decommissioning process.
Re-use and repurpose
The energy sector to date has been linear in its approach to the re-use and repurposing of infrastructure with in the UKCS. Multiple taskforces and working groups have identified significant opportunity within this area. With 1.2 million tonnes of infrastructure estimated to be removed within the next 10 years, we aimed to look for technologies and methodologies that will help realise the opportunities.
- Applications for identifying/marketing/selling all infrastructure for reuse
- Repurposing initiatives of existing infrastructure in particular geothermal technologies
- Recycling methodologies including waste identification, characterisation, and quantification.
Simulation and Decision Making
With an estimated 125 topsides and 115 jacket structures to be removed within the next 10 years, we must learn from our previously executed projects. With a cost reduction focus of 35% over the next period – planning, forecasting and decision making has never been so important within the decommissioning space. As part of our funding competition, we aimed to look for ideas that will inform the decommissioning and late life landscape.
- Develop software to provide innovative solutions to achieve accurate data learning
- Decision making software through simulation to support new technologies and working practices