Pauline Innes, Director of Supply Chain and Decommissioning of the UK's North Sea Transition Authority, was revealed this week to have wrote to licensees “reminding them of their obligation to decommission wells in a timely manner”.

The statement revealing this information referred to current guidance compliance as "patchy", and emphasized the concern at the high number of deferrals for decommisioning activities that were not being acted upon.

It then continued on to warn that a failure to fulfill the requirements of a license agreement regarding decommisioning could result in the matter being handed on the the North Sea Transition Authority's Dipuptes and Sanctions Team.

In the letter in which Innes stated that the NSTA expects compliance from all licensees regarding decommisioning regulatory obligations to be fulfilled in a timely manner, specific reference was also made to the Well Consents Guidance, first published in 2018, which outlines the approach necessary for consideration of application of the suspension, or extension of suspension, of inactive wells.

“It sets out that we will generally consent to an initial suspension period of up to two years. Consent may be for a shorter period, or, in exceptional circumstances, it may be longer, but would not exceed five years,” Innes said.

Previously, the NSTA highlighted in its UK Continental Shelf decommisioning report for 2023, that the UKCS decommissioning sector has a projected spend of GBP 21 billion ($25.7 billion) between 2023 and 2032. This report was published last September.

This report emphasized the excellent opportunities the sector has in the reinforcement of the UK's supply chain reputation, and its role as a world leader in well decommisioning. However, “the industry must maintain its focus on performance, collaborate effectively and urgently commit to decommissioning plans to achieve further cost efficiencies in the face of challenging market conditions,” it added.