The ninth Offshore Decommissioning Conference run jointly by Oil & Gas UK and Decom North Sea, takes place from 26 – 28 November at the Fairmont Hotel, St Andrews, with around 450 industry professionals expected to attend.
Over the past decade, decommissioning of the North Sea’s oil & gas assets and infrastructure has steadily risen within the industry agenda. The Offshore Decommissioning Conference reflects this, having grown in stature to become the go-to event for those aiming to leverage North Sea mature basin expertise towards ensuring the UK becomes a world-class centre of decommissioning excellence.
Mike Tholen, Oil & Gas UK’s Upstream Policy Director, said:
“The decommissioning market is likely to remain pretty stable providing the UK supply chain with a steady work flow and an opportunity to develop highly exportable world-class capabilities. Decommissioning is becoming an integral part of the oil and gas industry and lessons learned from the growing number of completed projects are being applied to current and future projects to improve efficiency. Supporting the UK supply chain in developing competitive decommissioning capabilities is critical to our ability to compete for work both in the UK and maturing basins around the world.”
With annual decommissioning expenditure of £1.5-2 billion predicted over the next decade, the Oil and Gas Authority has set a decommissioning cost-reduction target of 35%. Initiatives underpinning the industry’s drive to deliver this goal feature prominently on this year’s agenda including the drive to reduce well decommissioning costs; a focus on strategies that address the question of operators’ long- term liabilities and a review of the potential for innovative decommissioning contacting models and improving sector-wide efficiency of project delivery.
The impact of science and technology on decommissioning will be explored throughout the conference, where around 30 companies will be showcasing the technology and methodologies designed to address the challenges discussed during the event.
Commenting on the significance of the conference, John Warrender, Decom North Sea’s Chief Executive said: “Decommissioning is no longer a thing of the future. Predictable operator project execution, better market visibility for the supply chain, improved regulatory engagement, together with aggregation and economies of scale, new technology and genuine knowledge-sharing are becoming critical and urgent issues that require collaborative industry attention.
“As the new Chief Executive of Decom North Sea, I am committed to ensuring that this year’s conference is geared towards addressing these issues, providing the industry’s most effective networking platform to help delegates develop solutions together.”
ENDS
Share this article