Decommissioning Pollution

Decommissioning pollution is the environmental impact of removing or disposing of offshore oil and gas infrastructure at end of field life. OSPAR Decision 98/3, adopted at Sintra in 1998, prohibits dumping or leaving disused installations wholly or partly in place across the OSPAR maritime area, with case-by-case derogations only for steel structures above 10,000 tonnes or concrete gravity-base structures. The main contaminant concern is the drill-cuttings pile around legacy platforms, which can hold oil-based mud residues, barite, and heavy metals; disturbing it during removal can resuspend toxins, so leaving stable piles in situ to degrade is often assessed as the lower-impact option.