Oil & Gas UK Decommissioning Insight 2014

6.6 Site Remediation and Monitoring Site remediation activities include pile management, clearing decommissioned oilfield debris (with a 500-metre zone and 200-metre pipeline corridor) and over-trawl surveys to demonstrate that the seabed is safe for fishermen. Expenditure for site remediation is forecast at £270 million between 2014 and 2023. Almost 95 per cent of this is forecast to be spent in the CNS and NNS areas and it is expected to peak in line with topside and substructure removal. Monitoring is the final stage in the decommissioning process. Operators are required to carry out post-decommissioning surveys and monitor the site beyond physical decommissioning. The specific details of the programme are agreed with the regulator on a project-by-project basis. Forecast expenditure on monitoring on the UKCS is £67 million across the ten-year period, over 80 per cent of which is in the CNS and NNS. The expenditure forecast has more than doubled in the 2014 report compared to 2013, which reflects the impact of the new projects included in the survey for the first time, as well as increased expenditure from existing projects.

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