Norway Offshore Oil & Gas Decommissioning Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

When oil and gas fields end production, their facilities need to be removed and disposed off or recycled, a process is known as decommissioning. Decommissioning of offshore structures is a highly complex and technical exercise that poses significant health and safety challenges. The process encompasses the planning, approval, implementation, removal, and disposal or re-use of an offshore structure. The Norway offshore oil & gas decommissioning market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 1.5% over the forecast period. Factors such as maturing oil & gas fields, low oil prices, and aging infrastructure are driving Norway offshore oil & gas decommissioning market. However, volatile oil prices are likely to restrain the growth of the market during the forecast period.

Key Highlights

• Topsides segment is expected to dominate in the Norway offshore oil & gas decommissioning market during the forecast period.
• Innovative technology for landscape reversal and an increasing amount of investments in the oil & gas industry is expected to provide opportunities in the target market in the future.
• Increaing offshore oil & gas production activities and aging infrastructure is expected to drive the Norway offshore decommissioning market over the forecast period.

Key Market Trends

Topsides Segment is Expected to Dominate the Market

• Offshore decommissioning refers to ending oil & gas operations on offshore platforms and restoring marine life and seafloor to its pre-production conditions.
• Norway is expected to have an extensive decommissioning portfolio over the ten-year window and is having a significant share in global decommissioning expenditure.
• Overall, 417 wells are expected to be decommissioned in Norway over the next decade. Among them, 313 are platform well and 104 are subsea well. Norway expects to decommission an average of 25 wells per year up until 2024 peaking up to 94 wells in 2025.
• Around 154,598 tonnes of topsides are expected to be removed throughout the Norway Sea over the next ten years. Whereas, around 77,129 tonnes of the substructure is expected to be decommissioned throughout the Norway sea region over the next decade. Hence, the topsides segment is expected to dominate the market over the forecast period.

Increasing Offshore Oil and Gas Activities and Aging Infrastructure to Drive the Market

• The North Sea is endowed with a thriving oil and gas industry which has benefitted the surrounding nations and their economies for many years and will for many more to come. Norway covers around 20% of North Sea fields.
• Norway’s oil and gas production is dominated by offshore exploration and production. According to Baker Hughes, Norway's offshore rig count was 17 in May 2020.
• Norway is an important supplier of oil and gas to the global market, and almost all oil and gas produced on the Norwegian shelf are exported. Therefore, a rise in demand for oil and gas is expected to boost oil and gas production over the forecast period.
• In 2019, exploration activity was at the same level as in 2018, and significantly higher than in the previous two years. 57 exploration wells were spudded and 17 discoveries were made on the Norwegian continental shelf.
• The average age of offshore oil and gas fields in Norway is around 24 years and most of the fields are at decommissioning age in recent years and forecast period. Few of the decommissioning projects in Norway are Gyda platform, Huldra gas and condensate field, Frigg gas field, etc.

Competitive Landscape

The Norway offshore oil & gas decommissioning market is consolidated. Some of the major players in the market include AF Gruppen ASA, Aker Solutions ASA, Equinor Energy AS, DNV GL, and Spirit Energy Limited.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support