OGA Launches Centralized Decom Data Location

The UK Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has revealed that it has launched one centralized location for well data related to decommissioning.

The data, which is already publicly available, has been consolidated for the first time to help raise awareness about suspended wells in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) which await decommissioning, the OGA highlighted. The organization said the data will allow the supply chain and operators to identify wells that would be suitable for decommissioning through a campaign approach, which involves aggregating individual projects together into a larger program of work.

Campaign-based well decommissioning projects, as opposed to decommissioning wells individually, can result in substantial cost savings, especially when multiple operators engage together, the OGA noted. A culture shift to campaign-based decommissioning has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of decommissioning overall, according to the OGA.

“There are hundreds of suspended wells across the UKCS that are ready to be decommissioned,” Pauline Innes, the OGA’s head of decommissioning, said in an organization statement.

“By consolidating this data, we want to encourage companies to look at the opportunities for working together to get a sizeable well campaign going,” Innes added.

“For us, the cost savings from a campaign approach are compelling, so we are now asking industry to respond by working on solutions to tackle the significant suspended well stock,” Innes continued.

Joe Leask, the decommissioning manager at industry body Oil & Gas UK, said, “working together and combining similar work scopes in decommissioning makes sense”.

“Over the near term there is a large quantity of wells to be decommissioned in this highly specialized and costly part of the decommissioning process,” he added.

“Campaigning well decommissioning scopes helps us manage our costs more effectively and would help provide continuity of work for our hard-pressed supply chain. This is key if we are to continue to build and develop expertise which is highly exportable to other oil and gas provinces around the world some of which are also reaching maturity,” Leask went on to say.

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