For our next phase of decommissioning projects to be successful we need to recognise that what brought us this far will not take us to the next level. We ought to realise that decommissioning projects are a different class to new build and brownfield, requiring a more focused and complex mindset from all those involved.
We need to embed the understanding that the execution risk profile, logistics, regulatory and engineering needs of a decommissioning project are a step beyond those we are used to dealing with more traditional Australian projects.
Changing to embrace this will not be easy for anyone in the decommissioning ecosystem. It goes against deeply ingrained mental models shaped by conventional projects, but if we don’t, we will be living the euphemism that thed efinition of madness is to do the same thing over and over again in the hopes of something changing.
Australia’s oil and gas industry has a long history of exploration and development, marked by a series of amazing achievements such as the rapid establishment of our LNG industry, deploying the largest FLNG facility in the world and operating safely and successfully in a harsh and challenging environment with very few safety issues. Success like this, however, can lead to complacency, a degree of inflated self-belief and arrogance when new, complex challenges emerge.
A feeling of invincibility, that no challenge is beyond the knowledge and skills of the existing workforce, whether any of them have been involved in the new phase of the industry or not, particularly in a highly individualistic and geographically isolated place like Australia, easily leads to projects launched without external consultation and marked by optimism bias.We have all seen it before across the resources industry.
Organisations and the individuals they employ genuinely believe they have all the answers, sometimes without even considering what questions they’re answering.
Projects are planned with these optimistic perspectives, sanctioned and commence only to find that they are harder, more complex and need far more skills and knowledge than anticipated.
Largely, the Australian resources industry, at least at the corporate level, has learned its lesson in some of the most expensive and public ways possible when constructing new plant.
You only need to look at the cost and schedule overruns experienced during the peak phases when several new ironore, lithium, gold or LNG plants were being constructed simultaneously to see these lessons written in bold black and white across the business pages. Those lessons however don’t seem to have been internalised when decommissioning became the new kid on the block.
REACHING THIS POINT
Australia’s current decommissioning wave, which kicked off at the beginning of the decade following the issuing of several general directions and broad recognition that the time had come to remove redundant facilities, caught many companies by surprise.
Many organisations, whether title holders, or the service sector, had little in-country bench strength of experienced decommissioning personnel, not in estimating, planning, well P&A, or engineering.
They did though have plenty of experience in designing and building new plant.The mantra of the day was “decommissioning is only reverse engineering, how hard can it be…”.
A desire to execute decommissioning projects at the lowestc ost possible seemed to manifest into a belief that it could be achieved and completed at low cost, using the minimum of personnel, with schedules, budgets and risks as predictable as fora new build.
However, the adage that “no strategy survives the first engagement with the enemy” proved to be as true in decommissioning as it is in military planning.
Projects, regardless of the optimism of those undertaking them, will take as long as they need and cost whatever is necessary to be complete. Those early projects provide valuable lessons, should we choose to learn them.
DECOMMISSIONING PROJECTS ARE IMMENSELY COMPLEX
Perhaps more than almost any other resource sector project, decommissioning provides more layers of complexity in execution than any other.
They are enormously unpredictable due to the ravages of time on the facilities and the passage of time in corporate records and knowledge, they need not just a standard set of tools and techniques to execute them but frequently either new, bespoke tools or tools long since lost in warehouses, and they need approaches to the engineering and sciences that are rare to find in the global workforce, let alone in Australia.
Examples here would be wells drilled in the 60s and 70s using equipment and techniques long since abandoned. Their maintenance records, which have transitioned from field notes to paper to electronic files through many hands, are often difficult to access.
As a result, these wells can be particularly challenging to plug without significant expense for surveys and remanufacture of tooling.
Similarly, structures built to survive harsh environments, with no consideration for eventual removal prove to be hard to remove and challenging to process due to corrosion, decades of alterations and materials of manufacture that are subsequently difficult to remove and dispose of.
The nature of these complex projects requires a different mindset, not simply making traditional project management harder. All project personnel need to recognise that their project is a dynamic, evolving entity that will constantly involve unexpectedc hallenges needing to be resolved.
ACCESSING SKILLS IS HARD
It is no secret that the oil and gas industry is having difficulty attracting new and retaining existing talent.
Many potential employees are put off by the industry’s image and see brighter prospects elsewhere. Similarly, the decommissioning phase presents additional budgetary and identity challenges, making it even more difficult to attract workers.
For many, careers in decommissioning are seen as a dead-end street with little prospect for advancement, yet for those working in the space, closure and restoration of sites plus recycling of 95 to 98 per cent of all the materials can be some of the most rewarding work they will ever do.
WHERE TO FROM HERE
With a solid five years of project experience in the bank now, Australia’s decommissioning industry has enough knowledge and learnings to reflect on as we look to future projects. We have seen well campaigns blow out through unexpected revelations once the wells are accessed, we have seen challenging times in offshore removal activities, and we have learned from the challenges of landing complex structures into various ports across the country.
Additionally, we have significant regulatory learnings from the entire ecosystem as everyone from government through to service companies has had to adapt existing and largely untested regulations to suit the decommissioning needs.
As a community, the time is now to come together to share these learnings, and recognise that these projects are complex and need to be fully resourced, staffed and supported from initiation to be successful.
We need to allow realistic and meaningful timeframes for the work. We need to work collaboratively between title holders and regulators, between peers and the entire supply chain to attract the best and brightest minds to decommissioning as a career and grow with the industry into the next phases of work.
