Decommissioning Programme | ONE

Opportunity North East (ONE) and Scottish Enterprise (SE) have jointly developed a Decommissioning Programme to assist the oil and gas supply chain maximise emerging opportunities in offshore decommissioning. The Programme has identified several decommissioning opportunities with oil and gas operators. Supply chain companies across Scotland are invited to propose innovative and creative solutions based on existing technology in response to specific opportunities in order to improve efficiency and reduce cost and safety risk in an environmentally responsible manner.

Shallow gas reservoirs drilled at a 60-degree angle from the surface in the 1980s pose Spirit Energy a unique decommissioning challenge, resulting in a new design modular plug and abandonment unit which can be deployed across Spirit Energy’s decommissioning portfolio.

Although they are uncommon, Spirit Energy has 28 such ‘slant wells’ in Morecambe Bay, with 5 on their DP3 and 4 on their DP4 facilities - the first platforms in the field to reach the end of their productive lives. Faced with this challenge, Spirit Energy engaged Herrenknecht, a German technology firm, and the project team designed and modified a bespoke modular rig unit with a hydraulic mast which can be tilted between vertical and slant wells. The system was built and installed on the DP4 platform where it safely and successfully abandoned all 6 wells before moving onto DP3 to abandon a further 6 wells to repeat the operations.

The modular rig was deployed from a Jack-up Drill Rig which provided services and interfaces to support the rig operation on DP3 and DP4. This was useful in completing a wider campaign in the East Irish Sea including subsea well abandonments.

The challenge now is to enhance concepts for phase 2 for the abandonment of the 36 remaining live wells at DP1, DP6, DP8 and DPPA.

What We Are Looking For

1. In enhancing concepts for phase 2 for the abandonment of the 36 remaining live wells at DP1, DP6, DP8 and DPPA, on behalf of Spirit Energy, we invite ideas from the supply chain on:

• How deployment of the modular well P&A unit could be enhanced and evolved to drive further innovation and efficiencies for Phase 2 abandonments, commencing with DP1?
• Some examples could include:
• Innovative integrated service contracts with single interface to Spirit.
• DP1 walk to work from AP1 eliminating / minimising marine spread requirements.

2. As a secondary prospective alternative, on behalf of Spirit Energy, we would also be seeking:

• accommodation/crew support services, in conjunction with the above, for the abandonment of NUIs DP6 and DP8.
  

This could be by deployment of the unit from a standard work barge or well intervention barge removing the requirement for a Jack-up Drill Rig.

In line with the UK Government’s Maximising Economic Recovery Strategy (MER UK), there is a need to significantly reduce decommissioning costs by at least 35% through increased efficiency and through industry transformation. According to the Oil and Gas UK Decommissioning Insight 2019, 2,624 wells are expected to be decommissioned in the North Sea Basin over the next decade (1,630 in UKCS), and over 6,000km pipelines are slated for decommissioning in the UKCS in that same timeframe. A workload of 12 topsides per year up to 2025 is forecast to be decommissioned in the UKCS.

A strong UK offshore decommissioning sector capability is therefore important for delivering MER UK, and offers growth potential for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Anchoring high-value supply chain businesses long-term is a regional and national priority.

Overall, decommissioning presents significant opportunities for innovation, cost reduction and development of skills and capability, providing a major opportunity for North East Scotland and other Scottish supply chain companies to position themselves to bid for and secure decommissioning work in the UK and, by extension, internationally. The Scottish Enterprise Oil & Gas Decommissioning Action Plan describes the potential of the market in further detail.