Wireline Issue 44 - Spring 2019

Defying convention Decom Energy — the parent company of UK-based operator Fairfield Energy — has its origins in a strategic decision taken by those behind the business to explore this potential gap in the market. Fairfield took the decision in 2015 to cease production from its Greater Dunlin Area assets in the North Sea. Graeme, at that time chief financial officer with Fairfield, explains: “It was absolutely the right thing to do — Dunlin was 40 years old, and since COP in mid-2015 all our projections about likely future value have proved to be correct. It was right to approach decommissioning in this planned and controlled way.” That year Fairfield transitioned to a decommissioning operator, putting the decommissioning of the Greater Dunlin Area at the heart of its business and establishing a team focused on fit-for-purpose delivery. “Our strategic intent was to take our existing workforce with its in-depth asset knowledge, skills and experience and to provide career opportunities in decommissioning via the execution of a major decom project,” adds Graeme. “We could then take that expertise into new projects. It would give us demonstrable capabilities — a track record, which people obviously want to see.” Dunlin has been a highly complex decommissioning project, encompassing 45 platforms wells, which in many cases have posed technical challenges, as well as two subsea fields with 16 wells. It also involves 20,000 tonnes of topsides materials, a concrete gravity- based structure and an intricate network of subsea infrastructure. Graeme says that, through delivery of a multiple- workstream project, Decom Energy has developed greater insight into not just the technical challenges of decommissioning, but also commercial aspects and how to manage stakeholders. “At Dunlin we are two thirds of the way through the plugging and abandonment (P&A) programme and are progressing subsea infrastructure decommissioning and preparations for the removal of the topsides. It’s been a learning experience over the past three years – of developing best practice and taking real benefit from working in a complex decommissioning environment,” he adds. At Maersk Decom, Jens says the dedicated decommissioning model presents an opportunity to explore new commercial innovations — examining commercial and contracting models that incentivise the entire supply chain — as well as technical improvements. He cites the example of using an anchor handling winch on a Maersk Supply Service vessel to recover flexible flowlines as part of the Janice project. “The conventional way is to recover them and cut them into pieces as you go along,” he says. “But spooling them around the winch means we’ve been able to complete the work about 20 times faster.

“A key advantage for operators is that they don’t have to build in-house decom teams, then subsequently disband them when the project is complete.”

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