If you were Tony Stark and the Marvel high command suddenly marked your Iron Man suit for ‘decommissioning’, you’d be more than a little worried.
For the Oil & Gas industry, however, decommissioning is simply a natural stage in the lifecycle of its infrastructure.
And, while it marks the end of the road for some rigs, it’s just the beginning for an entire army of skilled workers.
Their mission it is to safely close wells and dismantle and dispose of off-shore super-structures – a truly gargantuan task, not just because of the sheer sizes involved but because there are so many pieces of kit.
It’s estimated in the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) alone, a total of 302 oil and gas installations, 373 subsea installations, 16,000km of pipelines and in excess of 5000 wells will all eventually need to be permanently taken out of action.
As more operators look to begin the process, they’ll also be looking for skilled operatives to complete the work in the safest and most efficient way possible.
Thankfully, when it comes to maximising resources from the UKCS, our industry is already a world leader – and now it has a fantastic opportunity to make a name for itself in decommissioning too.
Many different roles are going to be needed, including project managers, safety analysts, cutting experts, civil engineers, divers, and support and supply vessel crews, not to mention the personnel in the supply chains on dry land.
It’s a massive undertaking for every single rig.
There are, for instance, no fewer than 1000 people currently working on Shell’s Brent Project, both offshore and onshore.
To help such endeavours in the future, a decommissioning action plan has just been launched by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise.
This aims to take advantage of the £17.6 billion that Oil & Gas UK estimates will be spent on decommissioning on UKCS between now and 2025.
It’s believed Scotland could win £8.3 billion to £11.3 billion of this spend, directly supporting around 1900 jobs.
The ultimate goal, however, is to establish Scotland as a ‘Centre of Excellence’ for decommissioning – with the skills and experience ready to be deployed all around the world.
That’s positive news for anyone looking to get ahead in the Oil & Gas industry. So why not take a look at the current vacancies with s1jobs?