Decommissioning
Despite a 2.8% drop in liquefied natural gas exports in 2025 because of lost market share in China, Australia anticipates a 2026 rebound as new North West Shelf capacity comes online. Meanwhile, East Coast operators brace for a tsunami of wells entering the decommissioning pipeline and potential energy shortfalls necessitating LNG imports.
The North Sea Transition Authority has published its first table identifying 13 operators that are behind schedule in decommissioning their inactive North Sea wells.
Estimates commissioned by the Australian government suggest that increasing efficiency will lower costs for decommissioning offshore Australia.
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The Noble Jim Day semisubmersible (left) arrived at Harbor Island in Port Aransas, Texas, on 29 July to be cold stacked. -
A new method for accessing and cementing hard-to-reach spaces around complex offshore wells.
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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.
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With the current low-oil-price environment, the cost of decommissioning is seen as a key driver for the ongoing economic viability of the basin.
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This paper presents current advances in the development of a plasma-based milling tool and its use in casing-section milling for P&A.
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This paper presents the challenges and obstacles faced in the use of a new technology for the plugging and deoiling of sections of unpiggable flowlines before decommissioning.
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Techniques for well-abandonment log evaluations have been studied in the Gulf of Mexico since 2012. The new methods described in this paper consist of adding nuclear sensors to supplement the acoustic measurements and introduce novel processing methods.
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The global industry is feeling the pain of the oil price plunge, but the UK feels it more acutely. Exploration drilling is at rock bottom levels, the offshore UK Continental Shelf is one of the world’s most expensive from which to produce a barrel of oil, and investment spending is expected to fall.
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In a down market, plugging and abandoning North Sea wells looks like an opportunity. The cost for operators is reduced because the government is paying more than half of the cost of the work, and many service companies hungry for work are offering discounts.
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An ecosystem-based management program is described to assess the potential sensitivities and contribution of the platform as an artificial reef.
