Decommissioning faces a hefty clean-up bill
The industry will spend tens of billions of dollars closing down old offshore fields
The global decommissioning market is yet to take off fully. But as provinces mature, as fields near the end of their life, companies are preparing for the inevitable. They are scrutinising their decommissioning plans, the regulatory and fiscal regimes governing decommissioning and the costs of completing that work. The oil-price crash has made the task more urgent. In mature regions like the UK, higher oil prices allowed mature fields to keep producing beyond their expected economic life, but the price drop brought the day of reckoning nearer. Over the past five years, almost 500 offshore fields globally have ceased production, with that number expected to rise to 735 fields from 2018 to 202
Also in this section
28 March 2024
The country’s largest gas field is a bright spot for the North Sea, boasting cleaner operations amid a changing mood in Europe over hydrocarbons
28 March 2024
Whether OPEC+ starts to unwind its oil production cuts from June will depend on heavily debated unfolding supply-demand balances
28 March 2024
As a gas supply shortfall looms, balancing regulatory flexibility with energy security and investor confidence will be critical
27 March 2024
Oil producers have to untangle the increasingly complicated relationship with their natural resources