Decommissioning Insight 2015

DECOMMISSIONING INSIGHT 2015

6. Supply Chain Capability With over £800 million spent on decommissioning on the UKCS in 2014 (see section 5) and £16.9 billion forecast to be spent in total over the next ten years, decommissioning offers a significant opportunity for the UK supply chain to develop skills, technologies and expertise that can also be exported worldwide. A small number of large decommissioning projects are already under way, while 95 per cent of projects included in this survey are in the early planning stages and will move towards the contracting stage within the next few years. Companies and local authorities are preparing for this growth in the market by investing in new decommissioning facilities and extending harbours and ports. Aberdeen harbour, for example, is being expanded to include additional facilities at Nigg Bay, with heavy-lift capabilities and the ability to accommodate larger vessels 10 . The Lerwick Port Authority is also investing around £30 million into extending its quays and developing deep-water berths. It believes this expansion will make Lerwick well placed to take on further decommissioning work 11 . Montrose Port Authority will be investing £15 million to build on previous upgrades to the harbour to include more deep-water berths and heavy-lift pads 12 . Also, Peterson and Veolia are developing a £1 million decommissioning facility in Great Yarmouth to make this area the centre for decommissioning in the SNS region 13 . These investments will help establish the UK as a hub for decommissioning expertise and capability. A key element in developing the supply chain’s future capability will be co-operative working practices to create innovative solutions to undertake decommissioning in an environmentally sound, safe and cost-effective manner.

10 www.aberdeen-harbour.co.uk/future/nigg-bay-development/project-progress 11 www.lerwick-harbour.co.uk/quay-contract-dalesv 12 www.montroseport.co.uk/news 13 www.onepeterson.com/en/news and www.veolia.co.uk/media/media

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