Virus Crisis Threatens To Set Back Oil Platform Decommissioning

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Virus crisis threatens to set back oil platform decommissioning

Oil companies are being forced to cut spending due to a fall in global oil prices, threatening funds earmarked to dismantle dated off-shore rigs, despite environmental risks

London, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Jul, 2020 ):Oil companies are being forced to cut spending due to a fall in global oil prices, threatening funds earmarked to dismantle dated off-shore rigs, despite environmental risks.

A drastic drop in revenue caused by the coronavirus outbreak has seen majors such as Total, Royal Dutch Shell and BP having to cut or defer expenditure by billions of dollars.

Decommissioning platforms is not "one of their top priorities", according to Sonya Boodoo, an analyst at Rystad Energy.

She told AFP the allocated budgets for such activities would likely decrease by at least 10 percent over the next two years.

Before the outbreak, the UK Oil and Gas industry association estimated that firms planned to dedicate �1.5 billion ($1.9 billion, 1.7 billion euros) per year up to 2027 on decommissioning infrastructure in the North Sea.

The bill would have been the largest for any country in the world, analysts note, as hundreds of installations need attention in the coming decades.

"Many of the UK's platforms were built and designed during the 1970s," Romana Adamcikova, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said in a report earlier this year.