A Time to Change: New Energy, New Attitudes

By Callum Falconer, Operations Director

Decommissioning is an ever-evolving industry, and as the only trade organisation focused upon decommissioning, it’s critical that Decom North Sea evolves in tandem.?

Taking a New Route

Right now, with a new leadership team in place, we’re in the midst of mapping out our new route and whatever direction we take, our growth and ambitions have to be in line with the needs of the membership, as these are also diversifying in scope and geography.

Last month’s Decom Week was a point in question. The key mission of Decom Week was to reconnect our members on a face-to-face basis following two years of virtual communication, and feedback suggests we are on the right track. We have received a lot of motivational and formative feedback since the event, and we will learn from this for future events.

In planning Decom Week, we were determined to make it both relevant and enjoyable. And the way we decided to achieve that was to add fun to the mixture of information, learning and debate, which clearly struck a chord with those who attended. Other, smaller events will dominate the second half of the year which will keep our narrative current and topical and we are ending the first half of the year on a high, with our latest ‘Decom Live’ event taking place in Amsterdam this week, in collaboration with Amsterdam Ijmuiden Offshore Ports. We will be in a position to announce other events in the coming weeks, with an international location also on our radar.

So, bearing all that in mind, what does the future hold for Decom North Sea?

Broadening Horizons, Revising Identity

Fundamentally, growing our organisation and membership is top of the agenda. That is, of course, true from a UK perspective, but we are particularly focused upon the development of our members who are expanding into the international market and new overseas-based members who wish to be connected into an international network. In this respect we will have to make changes to our brand name to better reflect the way in which we would like to grow and expand our offering, while at the same time avoiding an “identity crisis” which has perhaps befallen others. So, whilst we will proceed with such changes with due deliberation and caution, we remain tenacious in building upon our value proposition to existing and new members.

Future-Proofed Decommissioning

The Scottish Government has well-documented ambitions to position Scotland as a Global Energy Hub, not least via the creation of the Energy Transition Zone and a commitment to the North Sea Transition Deal. The stages of transition itself are clear – from oil and gas, to decommissioning, renewables, CCUS and hydrogen. However, in order to successfully create a best-in-class, future-proofed and truly exportable decommissioning sector against this context, it’s important that we work with all stakeholders involved, and to that end we are currently collaborating with the decommissioning team at OEUK to ensure our efforts are additive rather than duplicated.

These are transformative times for the global energy sector, and we are focused on supporting our members every step of the way.?