Decommissioning Is Becoming a Reality

The decommissioning of offshore installations is both a cost burden to operators and a potential job and profit machine to contractors and service providers.

The Technical Session Decommissioning at Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference 2015 presents the latest decommissioning figures and recent experiences in oil and decommissioning projects. This session is organized in cooperation with the Association of Dutch Suppliers in the Oil and Gas Industry (IRO).

The moderator of this session will be Eric van Ewijk, Asset Manager with EBN BV. Van Ewijk started his career in 1984 with Conoco and held various technical positions within Conoco and EBN, both in the Netherlands, USA and UK.

The presentation contributions to the Decommissioning session come from Peter Valkenier, Engineering and Construction Manager at Wintershall, Simon Axon, Decommissioning Consultant at Centrica Energy E&P, Aart Geurtsen, Project Coordinator at GDF SUEZ E&P Nederland B.V. and Paul Yeats, General Manager at Eastern Hemisphere, Deepwater Technical Solutions, Oceaneering International Services LTD.

Peter Valkenier has been working in the offshore industry for more than 20 years. In 2007 he joined Wintershall Noordzee B.V. as Project Manager for a compression project and for the abandonment of a satellite platform project. Wintershall has a track record with decommissioning on the North Sea – the first platform that was removed from the Dutch sector – in 1988.

Simon Axon has been involved in elements of decommissioning since 1986, when he examined decommissioning concepts for the West Sole platforms in the southern North Sea. He will discuss the preparatory works leading up to submission and approval of regulatory documentation. He will explain his experience in terms of the time required, and explores some of the issues that can arise during the process.

In his presentation Aart Geurtsen will discuss how to deal with upcoming abandonment obligations. Decommissioning is an expensive and challenging activity that operators have successfully managed to push into the future for many years. However, for a large part of the ageing offshore infrastructure in the mature southern North Sea there is no escape anymore and decommissioning is now truly becoming a reality. Geurtsen started his career in 2008 as a project engineer for Subsea 7. In 2010 he joined GDF SUEZ E&P Nederland B.V., where he has worked as a Construction Supervisor on various new development projects and modification projects on existing offshore facilities.

Paul Yeates has worked in the Oil & Gas industry in Operations for 23 years for several of the largest service companies in the world. He has been at Oceaneering for the past 9 years and is in charge of all Eastern Hemisphere Decommissioning Operations. In his presentation the focus will be on how Oceaneering completed a successful wellhead removal campaign; 5 challenging subsea wells severed & recovered on time, within budget and no safety incidents.

The technical session: Decommissioning takes place on Wednesday the 14^th of October between 15.15 and 17.15 hour. Check the full Conference Program at Offshore Energy 2015.

Image: GSPOffshore