With new offshore decom roadmap in place, Australia steps up collaboration with UK

The United Kingdom and Australia have inked a partnership agreement to advance offshore oil and gas decommissioning expertise and capabilities in both countries. This forms part of Australia’s roadmap to dismantle the aging infrastructure in its waters.

The agreement was signed by the Australian Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia, Madeleine King, and the UK Minister for Services, Small Businesses and Exports, Gareth Thomas. It follows the recently signed Climate and Energy Partnership between the two aiming to support the Commonwealth duo’s economic resilience and decarbonization goals.

The UK’s work in the North Sea decommissioning arena – which the Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) expects will increase over the next decade – is anticipated to help with what the Australian government says is a “burgeoning” decommissioning services market at home. 

Alongside teaming up on areas such as supply chains, knowledge and skills, regulations, and financing, the deal will support collaboration between UK and Australian businesses engaged in decommissioning.

One such collaboration between players from the two countries was wrapped in August when the UK’s ASCO completed a decommissioning assignment at Western Australia’s Onslow Marine Support Base (OMSB), where it managed contaminated material.

Furthermore, the partnership agreement envisages the establishment of a working group comprising industry representatives, academic partners, and regulatory bodies to develop a collaborative framework and partnership program for knowledge transfer. The group is expected to identify decommissioning projects that would benefit from cooperation.

As part of its efforts in this segment, Australia has published an Offshore Resources Decommissioning Roadmap. This is the government’s plan to create a domestic decommissioning industry, supporting the transition to net zero. 

Since Wood Mackenzie’s 2020 projections stated that gas titleholders in Australia would spend an estimated AU$60 billion (approximately $38 billion) to decommission offshore infrastructure over the next 30–50 years, the roadmap outlines ways to ensure that these activities benefit the Australian economy and the environment. 

“The Albanese Government’s plan for a Future Made in Australia is backing our resources industry to create more highly skilled and well-paid jobs for Western Australians, throughout each project’s lifecycle. With an estimated $60 billion of infrastructure in Australian waters to decommission, we cannot afford to miss this opportunity to grow a new industry right here in WA,” said King.

The document includes actions such as maximizing the amount of decommissioning activity that happens domestically, growing Australia’s industrial capability in decommissioning activities, and creating jobs. It entails ensuring the industry pays for decommissioning and boosting the country’s recycling and waste management capacity to manage decommissioned material. 

An Offshore Decommissioning Directorate was formed to support the roadmap by driving actions from it to make decommissioning more efficient. The directorate is anticipated to work with industry, governments, and stakeholders to help address cross-sectoral barriers to growing the industry. International partnership agreements, such as the one signed with the UK, form part of this effort.

Last month, McDermott secured an engineering, procurement, removal, and disposal (EPRD) gig with Santos for the decommissioning of the Harriet Alpha platform and associated infrastructure offshore Western Australia.

A month before that, Eni’s Australian subsidiary submitted a revised environment plan for decommissioning operations at the Petrel field in the Bonaparte Basin in northern Western Australia to the Australian Commonwealth regulator, National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA).