Scottish decommissioning start-up eyes North Sea prize

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A new Scottish company is taking on the North Sea decommissioning market, claiming to offer a “one-stop-shop” for plug and abandonment (P&A) of oil wells.

Decommissioning

(Credit: Renata via CC)

Headquartered in Aberdeen, Well-Safe Solutions was formed by a group of offshore industry veterans, including Alasdair Locke, co-founder of the Abbot Group. The company is seeking to raise £200m in investment and claims it could create as many as 400 jobs. Alongside private capital, Well-Safe has also secured funding from Scottish Enterprise.

According to Well-Safe, expenditure on abandonment in the UK Continental Shelf is forecast to reach £1.1bn in 2017. Around 5,000 wells in the North Sea – 1,000 of which are subsea – need to be decommissioned. The company says that P&A activity accounts for around 60 per cent of overall decommissioning costs.

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/february-2015-online/engineering-a-sea-change/

“The market dynamics in oil and gas have changed significantly,” said Mark Patterson, executive director of Well-Safe Solutions. “Before the collapse in oil price, operators were focused on maximising production, costs were very high and assets scarce and, with no real regulatory imperative, decommissioning was pushed back.”

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