“There is a huge window of opportunity to become pioneers in decommissioning.Andrew Jones MP, Exchequer Secretary to the UK Treasury, outlined at Offshore

Europe the prize that decommissioning presented to the oil and gas industry. He said that approximately 10 percent of the North Sea’s facilities had been decommissioned to date. Over the next decade, another 100 offshore platforms will be either fully or partially removed and 1,800 wells abandoned.

We have the chance to make ourselves the go to global expert. That means thousands of highly skilled job opportunities and export opportunities as
businesses take their place in a worldwide, world class supply chain,” he said.

Regulatory body the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has estimated that decommissioning all of the U.K.’s current and future offshore facilities, pipelines, wells and terminals will cost almost £60 billion. But it has set a target of reducing that to less than £39 billion.

Is this achievable? How can we make the most of this opportunity and to what degree are we advancing our own demise by increasing our focus on decommissioning activity?

Andy Samuel, OGA’s chief executive, had something to say on the matter. On Day Three of Offshore Europe, I managed to get his thoughts on how decommissioning can become the latest successful chapter in the history of the U.K. oil and gas industry.