The UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) is the largest of the decommissioning markets, with a projected expenditure of £15.2 billion over the next decade.  This market represents technical, commercial and economic challenges for the industry. It also presents an unrivalled opportunity for the right kind of late-life operations and decommissioning operator.  Fairfield Decom has the credentials to rise to these challenges and to address that market opportunity.

Heerema Marine Contractors and AF Offshore Decom have worked together on a number of high profile North Sea decommissioning projects over the last 15 years and have consequently developed a close working relationship. Additionally, by drawing on the knowledge and experience gained by Decom Energy as an operator, along with their management team’s considerable understanding of joint ventures, Fairfield Decom credibly provides a fully integrated, end-to-end solution for ultra-late life operations and decommissioning activities through one company.

Decom Energy was established in 2016 as the first fully outsourced end-to-end, late-life and decommissioning operator in the North Sea. Its subsidiary, Fairfield Energy is focused on decommissioning the Greater Dunlin Area, comprising the Dunlin field, Osprey and Merlin subsea satellite fields and associated infrastructure. Its pioneering team has been generating solutions to the decommissioning of topsides and subsea infrastructure that have reached end of life, taking a nimble approach to seeking fit-for-purpose solutions that are not unnecessarily over-engineered. This experience of decommissioning a complex, first generation North Sea platform will be leveraged for the benefit of Fairfield Decom’s clients.

Heerema has an unrivalled track record of over 50 years’ experience in the offshore oil and gas and renewables industries, transporting, installing, and removing all types of offshore facilities, including fixed and floating structures in shallow, deep, and ultra-deep waters. Headquartered in Leiden in the Netherlands, Heerema provides expertise in project management and engineering to support decommissioning work scopes, with an impressive fleet that includes formidable ‘state-of-the-art’ heavy-lift and construction vessels.

AF Offshore Decom is a specialised contractor within offshore decommissioning that for the last 15 years has been developing solutions for the removal and recycling of offshore installations. AF Offshore Decom executes offshore decommissioning projects in a cost effective, safe and environmentally friendly manner ensuring that almost 98% of each installation is recycled. It manages onshore disposal at the AF Environmental Base, Vats in Rogaland, Norway that is tailor-made for the disposal of offshore structures. Additionally, AF Offshore Decom, has over recent years pre-qualified several UK yards to undertake demolition and disposal services in the UK.

Fairfield Decom brings together the very best of operator and contractor expertise to create a truly unique decommissioning operator. Blending our highly complementary capabilities we ensure full integration and the best possible outcomes for clients. This not only negates the need for separate contractual agreements and significant third party management but ensures a seamless and efficient end-to-end service at a highly competitive cost.

Fairfield Decom is the only company with the heritage, powerful combined expertise and capability to provide a fully integrated, end-to-end solution to late-life operations and decommissioning. In addition, Fairfield Decom has the freedom and appetite to agree innovative commercial arrangements to encourage asset owners and operators to address the challenge of decommissioning at an earlier stage than has traditionally been the case.

Fairfield Decom’s strategic aim is to become the ultra-late life operations and decommissioning arm for operators, enabling them to focus on core business.

This will be achieved by providing an all-encompassing solution for the ‘end of life’ asset portfolio of clients by bringing together the powerful expertise of an experienced operator and the world’s leading decommissioning contractors.

Fairfield Decom represents a step change in the decommissioning delivery business model designed to reduce the complexity, ensure optimum efficiency and cost effectiveness.

We believe that only specialist decommissioning companies with the capability to take on ultra-late life operations prior to an asset’s Cessation of Production (CoP) can fully access these efficiencies. This process ensures that the decommissioning specialist has a better understanding of the technical challenges, can initiate upfront decommissioning work scopes whilst the asset is still producing, and deliver a more economically efficient outcome. Fairfield Decom is the only company with the combined ultra-late life operations and specialist decommissioning expertise to offer these benefits. This business model is what we call ‘next generation decommissioning’.

Heerema and AF Offshore Decom having worked collaboratively for over 15 years on several high-profile decommissioning projects in the North Sea. With Heerema’s impressive fleet including formidable ‘state-of-the-art’ heavy-lift and construction vessels and AF Offshore Decom’s modern Environmental Base in Vats that is tailor-made for the disposal of offshore structures, these companies provide best-in-class services and guaranteed access to these assets.

Through Fairfield Decom, we are creating the new standard for late-life operations and decommissioning in the North Sea, through an all-encompassing, integrated decommissioning solution. Headquartered in Aberdeen, the success of Fairfield Decom will inevitably lead to skilled jobs for home-grown talent and work for the local supply chain.

Heerema and AF Offshore Decom will continue to provide their own discrete services where they do not form part of an end-to-end decommissioning service incorporating late-life operations, and fall under the banner of traditional EPRD (Engineering, Preparation, Removal and Disposal) activities. Decom Energy will remain the parent company of Fairfield Energy, but will otherwise solely pursue any new business through Fairfield Decom.

To further clarify, Fairfield Energy will continue to deliver the decommissioning of the Greater Dunlin Area.

Each of the partners brings very different expertise, however Fairfield Decom will function as a single, integrated entity as this is the most effective means of maximising efficiency. The ownership of the company is based on the experience, assets and funding that each party provides.

The Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has urged the oil and gas industry to deliver a target of 35% decommissioning cost reduction by 2022 and has asserted that this can be achieved through a combination of performance improvement, cost control, technological innovation and the adoption of new business models. Naturally, we have briefed the Regulator on our plans to establish a new decommissioning business model and it has welcomed this development.