Page 52: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jan/Feb 2020)

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FEATURE Decommissioning

Break it Down

The decommissioning market is making a comeback, with new fields of opportunity, and challenges, opening.

TSB Offshore President Will Speck shares insights on the path ahead.

BY JENNIFER PALLANICH ith the decommissioning market slowly “Things are recovering slowly,” says Speck, who’s been recovering, TSB Offshore is looking to with TSB Offshore for seven years. “The last couple of 2020 to be a year of growth and expansion years we had a fairly steady market.” for both the market and the company. According to the US Bureau of Safety and Environmen-

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The decommissioning market is growing, but it’s dif- tal Enforcement (BSEE), 137 structures were removed ? cult for a number of reasons. Chief among those reasons from the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is the fact that there is no revenue to the operator asso- in 2018, while 79 were removed in 2019. Due to the ag- ciated with removing aged equipment from an offshore ing of infrastructure in increasingly deeper waters, Speck ? eld combined with decommissioning’s role as the largest expects deepwater decommissioning activity, along with liability on an operator’s balance sheet. Further compli- related deepwater ree? ng, to rise in the coming years. cating the issue is that inadequate details about an asset That will create a potential learning curve as the industry or well can lead to surprises during the decommissioning works out the best way to remove aged tension leg platforms process, and those surprises usually increase the project’s (TLPs), compliant towers, and spars. Additionally, updated cost. Yet a third is evolving market needs, thanks partly decommissioning regulations addressing the challenges of to a variety of regulations in place in other parts of the deepwater decommissioning activities will be required.

world and partly to the industry’s march into ever deeper “Those are starting to be lined up for decommissioning, water, which results in different types of infrastructure and we’ve only seen a handful removed so far,” Speck says. that must be decommissioned. “We will see innovations, new methodologies and tech-

TSB Offshore, with headquarters in The Woodlands, nologies (for decommissioning) that we hope will drive

Texas, sees these challenges as growth opportunities, and costs down.” the company’s new president, Will Speck, is enthusiastic In a typical decommissioning scenario for a ? xed platform, about the potential to increase the company’s operations the topsides are removed to shore for re-use or recycling, around the world. while the substructure is severed 15 feet below the mudline 52 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM