EC55D4: OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS DECOMMISSIONING (2024-2025)

As oil and gas fields reach the end of their economic and technical lifespans, they must be decommissioned to return the environment to, as far as possible, its original state in a safe, efficient and environmentally friendly manner. This is a legal mandate, sanctioned by international law. Decommissioning is a highly complex process, requiring highly skilled operations and personnel. The global oil and gas decommissioning industry is now worth a massive $340 billion. In the UK alone, close to $1.8 billion is expected to be spent on decommissioning oil and gas facilities annually. Decommissioning is increasingly being regarded as a normal aspect of doing business in the oil and gas industry, alongside exploration, development and production;

The course objectives are;

• To develop knowledge and understanding of the international legal regime on oil and gas prospecting and decommissioning, and how these flow on to regional and national regimes on same
• To critically assess the processes and options involved in a decommissioning workflow 
• To critically evaluate business models, contracting and methods to mitigate risk within decommissioning processes
• To apply economic principles to critically analyse operators’ strategic investment decisions as to when to permanently cease production and decommission oil and gas facilities
• Apply and analyse economic models to evaluate how different government taxation decisions impact on decommissioning and economic recovery of oil and gas reserves

Specific topics include;

• The International Law of the Sea
• The Global Legal Regime for Oil and Gas Decommissioning
• Decommissioning: A Global Overview
• Planning a Decommissioning Programme
• Decommissioning Workflow
• Waste management and Repurposing
• Decommissioning Business Models
• Contracting in Decommissioning
• Decommissioning Security Agreements
• Decommissioning Relief Deeds
• Economic Criteria for Optimising Timing of Decommissioning
• Transferable Tax History

At the end of this course, students should acquire detailed understanding of the major issues in offshore oil and gas decommissioning, across a wide variety of themes.  They will be able to assess and evaluate different critical dimensions of decommissioning from a variety of perspectives.   

Special attention is given to issues in the UKCS and the North Sea but owing to the nature of decommissioning, these issues invariably overlap other basins across the globe, and therefore the knowledge and skills gained are transferable to other decommissioning contexts around the world.