Challenges in the decommissioning on the North Sea
- Authors
- Noro?a Haro, Diego Marcelo
- Format
- MasterThesis
- Status
- publishedVersion
- Description
The decommissioning of installations in the North Sea is a relative new market that will be developed in the near future due to the amount of platforms built since 1970?s. The intent of this document is to review the different technical aspects of decommissioning programmes in several fields looking for their outcomes and recommendations to compile the challenges that these face. Smaller tasks performed during the decommissioning can be grouped in categories such as well plug and abandonment (P&A), subsea and pipeline decommissioning, topsides and structures decommissioning being steel or concrete the principal construction material; and finally disposal of the removed items (Tularak, et al., 2007). Therefore, the fact that all platforms face unique design conditions then challenges to overcome them may be different. Removing the completion, plugging permeable zones, and removing the wellhead have their challenges such as creating a seal that isolates permanently several zones on the reservoir. Pipeline decommissioning presents the challenge of develop a method to retrieve the material in a safe and economical way; but, the inherent uncertainty of pipeline?s structural integrity had played an important role on companies, making them choose an alternative option which is leave in place the buried pipelines. Topside and jacket removal has its biggest challenges in the engineering ?economic balance,reuse possibilities, disassembly methods, onshore transport, and disposal. All of these make a big impact not only on risk and environmental aspects but also on the expenditure required. Furthermore, safety concerns under incomplete tasks during the decommissioning face the challenge of creating a sound cut with minimal environmental impact and without affecting future regional activities but more importantly without exposing personnel to perils. Management of drill cuttings during drilling activities has given good results when the option of leaving them on the sea bed for natural degradation is chosen, but the challenge of a more environmental friendly disposal is a constant in the industry.
- Publication Year
- 2014
- Language
- eng
- Topic
- ECONOMIC REVIEW
DECOMMISSIONING COST
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
OFFSHORE INSTALLATIONS
- Repository
- Repositorio SENESCYT
- Rights
- openAccess
- License
- openAccess