The cost of decommissioning oil and gas structures in the North Sea is likely to hit £24.6billion up to 2033, industry experts have predicted.
Offshore Energies UK’s latest Decommissioning report, to be published today, highlights costs have shot up by almost 20% in comparison to last year’s forecast.
The trade body suggests around £2.3billion is likely to have been spent during 2024, up from £1.7billion in 2023 and £1.6billion in 2022.
OEUK warns, The Times reports, uncertainty over the fiscal outlook had slowed activity but that there was not yet any evidence of companies prematurely ending production in the UK completely.
Ricky Thomson, the OEUK decommissioning manager, called for a supportive fiscal regime to give production companies time to properly plan out decommissioning work and to maximise the contracts on offer for UK support companies.
He said: “Decommissioning in general we see as an opportunity, and so does industry.
“This is about the amount of knowledge that can be gained by the last 50-plus years of work, of innovation, of new technologies, used within the North Sea.
“In order to decommission an asset, you basically have to learn absolutely every last bit of knowledge [about] that asset for the last 50 years.”
