North Sea

Will the UK decommissioning yards have the capacity to handle the anticipated workload of 261 platforms? Some of the pressure may be relieved as a result of the continuing production from many fields forecast to be abandoned in the current price environment as Opex costs offshore UK have fallen.

The Buchan Alpha ended production on 12 May in the UK North Sea. The semisubmersible moored floating production facility will be decommissioned by Veolia at its Dales Voe site in Lerwick, Shetland.

A panel of UK government officials and industry executives discuss opportunities to increase efficiency in North Sea decommissioning programs.

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden is to speak at the opening plenary session at SPE Offshore Europe 2017, which is being held in Aberdeen from 5–8 September.

CEO Bob Dudley, who calls BP’s UK North Sea business one of its “crown jewels”, will address hundreds of delegates at the opening plenary session at Europe’s foremost exploration and production technical conference and exhibition.

With an uncertain future spawning from the Brexit referendum, the British government is seeking to maintain as much consistency in its energy policy as possible.

A team of oil and gas consultancy companies have formed a collaborative program aimed at offering integrated support for operators looking to retire redundant facilities without in-house overhead.

Operators in the North Sea have been concerned about the ability of the cement sheath to maintain sealing integrity because of the increasing number of reported failures in mature wells. This paper presents results from a new laboratory setup to visualize the source of issues.

The operator of an offshore jackup rig in the North Sea required safe and efficient deployment of the completion string without killing the well during tripping.

Many of the platforms in the North Sea are late in life, operating long past their initial design expectations due to costly life-extension work. Decommissioning has moved slowly, but the low price environment is likely to accelerate the trend.