Industry Forum to Offer Decommissioning Course

Decommissioning industry body Decom North Sea (DNS) is launching a new training course to give an overview of the sector.

With decommissioning spend forecast to be around £1 billion a year for decades to come and the government recently announcing changes to bring more stability to the sector, increased employee numbers will be needed to maximize the opportunities on offer to the supply chain.

As a result, DNS is to start holding two-day training courses in key locations across the U.K. to give an overview of the activity involved with offshore decommissioning, how it is currently undertaken and what the future could look like. The first is taking place in Aberdeen on November 20 and 21, with further courses to be scheduled for next year.

These are the first training courses to be offered by DNS and are aimed at anyone working in, connected to or with an interest in decommissioning, including operators, contractors, regulators and the financial services sector.

The training courses are being delivered in partnership with Decomareus, an organization consisting of three course leaders who have a vast wealth of experience in the decommissioning sector. They are:

•Bob Hemmings, who has 35 years’ experience, was project leader for Brent Spar and has sat on several decommissioning-related expert groups and acts as a consultant for Shell on global decommissioning strategies.
•David Hoare, who spent more than 30 years with BP in the Upstream E&P business in a variety of roles including project manager for significant scopes of work on the decommissioning of the Miller and North West Hutton platforms. He also has been involved in a number of industry groups.
•Chris Gray, who had a career of 40 years with Conoco and ConocoPhillips in a variety of roles and helped establish their decommissioning strategy. He continues to work on oil and gas U.K. decommissioning initiatives.

The courses will cover topics including cost, safety, legislation, stakeholder engagement, removal and lift, onshore dismantling and ongoing liability, using lessons learned from previous decommissioning activity as examples. In addition the course will discuss opportunities for improvement.

decomnorthsea.com