Since the first off-shore well, defined as beyond the sight of land, was drilled on 1940s in shallow water about 10.5 miles off the Louisiana coast, the technology evolved and changed bringing the industry beyond any imaginable limits, up to the Total's Raya-1 well in Uruguay, currently the deepest offshore well, drilled at 3,400m water depth in 2016. The oil and energy industry is changing rapidly, and we all have to adapt to changing market conditions, bearing in mind that "it is not the strongest of species that will survive nor the most intelligent but the most adaptable".
This study goes through oil & gas industry offshore structure evolution up to the most advanced technologies and shows how its know-how can be transferred to upcoming frontier of offshore renewable energy farms, from a technical as well as operational perspective. Indeed, the wind energy sector has more and more directed its attention to offshore installations, moving from low depth to medium depth and finally to future high-depth floating wind turbines.
The study compares different technological solution for wind farms: monopile, concrete gravity base structures, jacket and floating and how they changed to fit the different purpose of sustaining the tower and turbine, with associated loads. The analysis includes Capex as well as operational benefit or constraints
The Oil & Gas sector is currently facing many challenges.
These include international climate frameworks such as the Paris Agreement, consistently low crude oil prices together and the foreseeable End Of Life (EOL) of many O&G assets.
Faced with potentially very high decommissioning costs for offshore infrastructure which are reaching or will soon reach (e.g. within 30 years) the end of its economically operational lifetime, the O&G sector may benefit from a partial or complete repurposing of this infrastructure, during and/or after its operational lifetime. Rystad Energy estimates the total value of the global pool of decommissioning projects that will accumulate through 2024 could reach $42 billion. IHS Markit expects spending on decommissioning projects to increase from approximately $2.4 billion in 2015, to $13 billion-per-year by 2040, or an increase of 540%, according to a new IHS Markit Offshore Decommissioning Study Report.
