Decommissioning Insight 2016

DECOMMISSIONING INSIGHT REPORT

2016

5.6 Onshore Recycling and Final Disposal

Onshore topside and substructure recycling and disposal includes activities related to the cleaning and handling

of hazardous waste, deconstruction, reuse, recycling, disposal and waste management accounting. Operators

have a duty to monitor all waste generated offshore and its handling and disposal through an environment

management system

Preferred processes to deal with offshore structures that are no longer in use follow the hierarchy of reuse,

recycling and onshore disposal. Once the structures are onshore, disassembling and processing takes place on

specialist licensed sites.

Reuse is any activity that will lengthen the life cycle of an item, while it is still used for its initial purpose. This is not

to be confused with recycling, which is when an item is reprocessed into a new, raw material. Reuse is often more

challenging than recycling, however, it is often cost efficient and can help minimise waste disposal. The decision of

whether to reuse, recycle or dispose to landfill is driven by various factors, including the amount of maintenance

needed, the prevalence of out-dated technology, and the quantity of harmful material on an asset.

Topsides are made from various materials and therefore dismantling and safe waste management is often

more difficult than managing substructures that are generally made of steel and can be processed and recycled

more readily. Recent decommissioning projects demonstrate high levels of reuse and recycling at 95 per cent of all

recovered materials. Hess details a reuse and recycling percentage of 96.9 per cent in the close-out report for the

Fife, Fergus, Flora and Angus fields decommissioning programme, with a reuse rate of 48.2 per cent

Close to 1.1 million tonnes of infrastructure are expected to be brought onshore for recycling and final disposal

from the UK and Norwegian Continental Shelves between 2016 and 2025.

Thirty-four per cent (369,190 tonnes) will come from the central North Sea, 33 per cent (360,456 tonnes) from the

northern North Sea and �est of Shetland, 18 per cent from the Norwegian Continental Shelf (199,091 tonnes), and

15 per cent from the southern North Sea and Irish Sea (164,834 tonnes).

Over 36,000 tonnes are forecast to come onshore in 2016, with an average yearly weight of 62,400 between 2016

and 2019. Activity is expected to rise as the decade progresses, peaking at just under 200,000 tonnes in 2024.