North Sea industry urged not to backtrack on decommissioning cost-reduction progress

The UK North Sea industry is being urged not to lose focus and move backwards on positive progress made in recent years in cutting the forecast multibillion pound bill of decommissioning all its platforms and pipelines.

Companies have been producing oil and gas from beneath the UK North Sea for more than 50 years.

The region now has about 12,000 offshore wells and is home to more than 300 platforms, 1000 offshore structures and 40,000 kilometres of pipelines — all of which by law must be removed once production ends.