Decommissioning faces a hefty clean-up bill
The industry will spend tens of billions of dollars closing down old offshore fields
The global decommissioning market is yet to take off fully. But as provinces mature, as fields near the end of their life, companies are preparing for the inevitable. They are scrutinising their decommissioning plans, the regulatory and fiscal regimes governing decommissioning and the costs of completing that work. The oil-price crash has made the task more urgent. In mature regions like the UK, higher oil prices allowed mature fields to keep producing beyond their expected economic life, but the price drop brought the day of reckoning nearer. Over the past five years, almost 500 offshore fields globally have ceased production, with that number expected to rise to 735 fields from 2018 to 202
Also in this section
10 March 2026
By shutting the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has cut exports of distillate-rich Middle Eastern crude, jet fuel and diesel, and is holding the energy market hostage
10 March 2026
Eni’s director for global gas and LNG portfolio, Cristian Signoretto, discusses how demand will respond to rising LNG supply, and how the company is expanding its own gas and LNG operations through disciplined, capital-efficient investments
9 March 2026
Petroleum Economist analysis sees increases in output from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Kazakhstan among others before region’s murky descent
9 March 2026
Energy sanctions are becoming an increasingly prominent tool of US foreign policy, with the country’s growth in oil and gas production allowing it to impose pressure on rivals without jeopardising its own energy security or that of its allies, argues Matthew McManus, a visiting fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics
