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7.6 Site Remediation and Monitoring
Site remediation activities include cuttings piles management, oil field debris clearance (with a 500-metre zone and
200-metre pipeline corridor) and over-trawl surveys. Over-trawl surveys ensure that the seabed can be deemed
clear for resuming normal fishing activities.
Nearly £280 million is forecast to be spent on site remediation over the next decade, with 98 per cent of this
concentrated in the CNS and NNS/WofS regions.
Monitoring is the final stage in the decommissioning process. Operators are required to carry out
post-decommissioning surveys and monitor the site beyond physical decommissioning. The specific details of
the programme are agreed with the regulator on a project-by-project basis.
Expenditure on monitoring is forecast at £32 million between 2015 and 2024. Eighty-eight per cent of this is
forecast to be spent in the CNS and NNS/WofS areas. The expenditure forecast has not increased since the 2014
survey, despite new projects being included. This is because a number of projects are completed outside the
survey timeframe. If the spend attributed to these projects is included in the total forecast expenditure, the total
spend on site remediation would nearly double and the expenditure on monitoring would triple. However, overall,
this is a fraction of the total cost to decommission a field.
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