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Journal of Australian Energy Producers
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access) (Non peer reviewed)

Environmental benefits of leaving steel-piled jacket platforms in place

Sheela Veluayitham A * , Louise Mayboehm A and Katie Martin A
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- Author Affiliations

A Esso Australia Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Vic., Australia.


The APPEA Journal 63(2) S113-S116 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ22088
Submitted: NaN NaN  Accepted: 29 March 2023  Published: 11 May 2023

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of APPEA. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

With many of the Bass Strait reservoirs having reached the end of their productive life, Esso has been planning and preparing for the decommissioning of facilities including the currently non-producing steel-piled jacket platforms (platforms). Given many of these platforms have been in place for several decades, it is important to understand the ecosystem that has established around them to ensure that the environmental impacts and risks of decommissioning are appropriately assessed. Esso undertook an offshore environmental survey in 2021 using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to collect visual imagery of the environment around a representative set of platforms (and pipelines), including reference sites (natural seabed environment), to supplement available literature with site-specific data. The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) performed detailed analysis of the fish and benthic communities that are associating with the infrastructure to provide insights into understanding the habitat value of the infrastructure. An equal or better environmental outcome assessment undertaken by Esso identified that preserving the marine communities that have established on and around the platforms is a key consideration between complete removal of platforms and the proposed end state of retaining the lower sections (minimum 55 m below mean sea level) of selected platforms in situ.

Keywords: decommissioning, environmental benefits, equal or better environmental outcome, habitat value, impacts, preserving, risks, steel-piled jacket platforms.

Reference

McLean D, Speed C, Vaughan B, Colquhoun J, Case M, Wyatt M, Ferreira L, Mc Cormack S (2022) Marine Communities of Offshore Platforms and Surrounding Natural Habitats in the Bass Strait, South-East Australia. Confidential report for Esso Australia Pty Ltd.