During our visit at the UK subsea exposition in Aberdeen, we had the opportunity to discuss about the current market situation and reviewed the latest solutions proposed to the subsea market.

It’s also important to point out here the market simulation made by the University of Aberdeen Center for Research in Energy Economics and Finance (ACREEF), which has estimated an Oil price of $60,5 per boe for the period from 2017 to 2050.

The Key information about the North Sea market is certainly the transformation program initiated in 2017 on the United Kingdom continental shelf (UKCS), The process optimisation within the UKCS service provider market, shall generate an extra £2B income until 2025.

Another element of the agenda is the decommissioning of 349 fields, including 214 fields on the UKCS, 2379 wells to be plugged and the removal of more than 200 platforms, which will represent a spend of £65B on the UKCS.

This spend can be broken down in various markets such as wells plugging and wells abandonment solutions which account for 49% of the total spend (£7,5B), Topsides and sub structure removals which account for 13% of the total spend (£2B), Subsea infrastructures removal which account for 11% of the total spend (£1,7B).

The second key element is the focus on the cost management on the decommissioning projects and ongoing expenses on the wells in production, by the development of UK Performance indicators with expected reduction cost up to 29% in removal and 19% in wells decommissioning over the period and 16% in the removal of substructures and topside.

The innovation shall lead the cost reduction, with the development of new technical solutions such as the development of remote monitoring solutions and the utilisation of autonomous subsea equipment such as ROVs and autonomous subsea power plants, in order to minimise the platforms utilisation and to improve the Safety of operations.

As part of “Vision 2035” project, the local services shall be re-organised in order to improve the efficiency and the cost of the services provided in the UKCS market by the development of competition within the local market.

The second objective of “Vision 2035” is also to export the best practices developed to the International sub-sea market such as USA, Canada, Norway, Malaysia, Indonesia or Australia in this new market situation.