Ross Anderson
It’s no surprise, given the quantity of oil and gas infrastructure in the core Middle-east, that an estimated 1,000 assets and over 3,000 wells are set to exceed their operational life expectancy over the next 20 years. (Boston Consulting Group, 2018).
Lessons learnt, processes, skills and technology from the North Sea’s decommissioning experience are being applied to those regions, tackling the challenges raised by their own late life oil and gas infrastructure.
Decommissioning is a key life cycle phase, and regardless of where liability lies (which is often uncertain the Middle-east), it is inevitable, and reducing cost is essential.
Decommissioning presents the unique opportunity for collaboration, absorbing best practice, the use of new technologies and alternative solutions outside of the competitive environment of earlier operational life cycle phases. This, in turn provides the opportunity to create significant time and cost savings.
At James Fisher Offshore (JFO), we are excited to be exporting our combination of experience, skills and innovative equipment in support of our customers globally. Most recently, enhancing our on-the-ground presence in the Middle-east with bases in both the Saudi Kingdom and the UAE.
Our JFO hub in al-Khobar in the Saudi Kingdom not only allows us to engage with project supply chains and relevant stakeholders, but from this base we can deploy equipment locally, including our hydraulic winches, subsea demolition and advanced abrasive cutting system. We are also providing expertise and full project support locally.
Likewise, in the neighbouring UAE, from our Dubai regional office we are providing engineering support, account management, equipment and personnel mobilisation.
We recognise how important it is for our team to create and nurture relationships with our customers, the wider project supply chains and business community to continue to develop trust in our people and our services.
Our ability to support our clients and trade from these regional bases streamlines the commercial process, reduces mobilisation time and costs and provides assurance to our customers of our commitment and ability to deliver as their supporting contractor.
The Middle-east is a key market for JFO where we are creating measurable efficiencies for some of the region’s most notable decommissioning projects. We are looking forward to supporting our ever-growing portfolio of contracts and to building on our relationships, our team and decommissioning capabilities across this exciting market.