Offshore Fixed Structures: Decommissioning

(asked on 20th April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department made of the adequacy of funding for decommissioning of redundant offshore oil drilling platform bases in line with the Energy Act 2008.


Answered by
Kwasi Kwarteng Portrait
Kwasi Kwarteng
This question was answered on 28th April 2020

BEIS officials in the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED) continually consider the adequacy of companies to fund decommissioning and where any risk is identified my officials undertake work to mitigate these risks and where necessary have taken security in the form of letters of credit and entered into Decommissioning security agreements with companies.

Liability for decommissioning is joint and several and all companies who have had a beneficial interest in a licence both past and present are liable.

BEIS officials in OPRED also have a detailed understanding of the Decommissioning security that is in place in the form of commercial Decommissioning security agreements for all fields in the UKCS.

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