Energy and marine consultancy ABL has won a service contract to support Esso Australia Resources as it prepares to remove up to 12 offshore platforms in the Gippsland Basin as Phase 1 of Australia’s largest offshore decommissioning campaign gets underway.
Esso operates the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture, which is decommissioning approximately 400 wells, six subsea facilities, more than 800 km of subsea pipelines, and 19 platforms that have been in service for over 50 years in the waters between Victoria and Tasmania.
With approximately 60,000 tons of offshore structures to be removed and a target to recycle over 95% of materials, the project represents a major milestone for Australia’s decommissioning ambitions, ABL said in announcing the contract in late May.
Operators in Australia say they expect to invest more than $40.5 billion through 2050 to decommission aging offshore assets. This estimate reflects legal requirements obligating the industry to pay all costs, including infrastructure removal, well plugging, and site rehabilitation.
ExxonMobil leads this process with its Bass Strait plug and abandonment campaigns offshore southeast Australia, which were to wrap up the Bream wells this year. Allsea’s heavy-lift vessel Pioneering Spirit is scheduled to arrive in Gippsland in the third quarter of 2027 to begin the removal of topsides and jackets.
ABL’s Role in the Bass Strait
Esso commissioned ABL’s Australia unit to provide marine warranty survey (MWS) services to support the first phase of the decommissioning campaign, the company said in its release.
“This is a landmark project for Australia’s offshore industry, involving highly complex marine operations, including offshore lifting, transportation, and discharge of substantial tonnage of assets that are up to half a century old,” said Adam Solomons, East Coast Manager at ABL Australia.
“Our extensive track record and multidisciplined expertise that we offer in decommissioning, alongside our deep experience in offshore Australia, makes ABL well positioned to support Esso in reducing risk and optimizing their operations,” he added.
A part of the Oslo-listed ABL Group, ABL brings more than 4 decades of decommissioning experience, supporting offshore oil and gas and offshore wind projects globally, offering services from feasibility and owner’s engineering through to marine consultancy and MWS, the company noted.