Consultation outcome: Strengthening the UK’s offshore oil and gas decommissioning industry: call for evidence

The government response puts forward practical actions that can support the development of the UK decommissioning sector and the government’s ambition that the UK becomes a global centre of expertise for decommissioning:

• regulators and sector trade associations to develop mechanisms to increase transparency of the pipeline for new decommissioning projects on the UKCS, as part of the Decommissioning Task Force
• regulators and industry to develop mechanisms to share KPIs and benchmarking data across the sector to ensure best practices are embedded within decommissioning businesses with the objective of increasing efficiency and reducing costs
• the Decommissioning Task Force, Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) and National Decommissioning Centre (NDC) to develop a plan with regulators and industry to encourage the trialling, adoption and deployment of new technology and data solutions for decommissioning projects on the UKCS, especially where there is scope for cost reduction
• North Sea Transition Task Forces, Department for International Trade (DIT), and industry to develop mechanisms to improve market intelligence, including key export markets, businesses involved, regulatory barriers and size of the opportunity
• government, regulators and export agencies to develop an export strategy to promote UK expertise, targeting key markets and leveraging current international diplomatic strengths, which could then potentially lead to a pilot project in a target market