Call for evidence outcome

Strengthening the UK’s offshore oil and gas decommissioning industry: call for evidence

• From: Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and HM Treasury
• Published: 13 March 2019
• Last updated: 14 December 2020 — See all updates

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

This call for evidence has closed

Read the full outcome

Strengthening the UK’s offshore oil and gas decommissioning industry: government response

PDF, 381 KB, 36 pages

Detail of outcome

The government response puts forward practical actions that can support the development of the UK decommissioning sector and the government’s ambition that the UK becomes a global centre of expertise for decommissioning:

• regulators and sector trade associations to develop mechanisms to increase transparency of the pipeline for new decommissioning projects on the UKCS, as part of the Decommissioning Task Force
• regulators and industry to develop mechanisms to share KPIs and benchmarking data across the sector to ensure best practices are embedded within decommissioning businesses with the objective of increasing efficiency and reducing costs
• the Decommissioning Task Force, Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) and National Decommissioning Centre (NDC) to develop a plan with regulators and industry to encourage the trialling, adoption and deployment of new technology and data solutions for decommissioning projects on the UKCS, especially where there is scope for cost reduction
• North Sea Transition Task Forces, Department for International Trade (DIT), and industry to develop mechanisms to improve market intelligence, including key export markets, businesses involved, regulatory barriers and size of the opportunity
• government, regulators and export agencies to develop an export strategy to promote UK expertise, targeting key markets and leveraging current international diplomatic strengths, which could then potentially lead to a pilot project in a target market

We received around 31 individual written responses from a range of stakeholders, including:

• supply chain firms
• industry associations
• trade unions
• oil and gas operators
• public entities (government or government agencies)
• port authorities

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Original call for evidence

Summary

A call for evidence to identify what more should be done to further strengthen Scotland and the UK’s position as a global hub for decommissioning.

This call for evidence ran from
12:30pm on 13 March 2019 to 11:45pm on 8 May 2019

Call for evidence description

The call for evidence focuses on 2 central themes:

• building on the existing fiscal, policy and collaborative measures, how the UK decommissioning industry could further improve its ability to serve the UK market, support MER UK and reduce the overall costs of decommissioning
• what could be done to encourage the domestic industry to export its decommissioning expertise abroad and position Scotland, together with the rest of the UK, as a world leading hub for decommissioning

We’re seeking views from:

• industry
• trade associations
• research and technology organisations
• MER UK Taskforces, established by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA)
• any other interested party, including academia

Responses to this call will:

• allow the government, industry and the Oil and Gas Authority to assess the relative strengths of the UK decommissioning industry
• contribute to a strategic and coordinated approach to policy, to ensure that our supply chain benefits from the opportunities that will arise from this phase of the industry’s life cycle
• ensure we are prepared for global opportunities, forecast to be worth around £80 billion over the next 10 years

Documents

Strengthening the UK's offshore oil and gas decommissioning industry: call for evidence

PDF, 1.77 MB, 21 pages

Published 13 March 2019
Last updated 14 December 2020 + show all updates

1. 14 December 2020

   Government response published.

2. 13 March 2019

   First published.