Allseas, TAQA achieve North Sea decommissioning milestone

Since its installation in 1988, the Eider Alpha platform has produced 175M barrels of oil equivalent, peaking at 55,000 barrels of oil per day. It supported production from the nearby Otter field, which required several wells tied back to the platform through subsea infrastructure.

Since assuming operatorship in 2008, TAQA UK invested in extending the platform’s economic life and ensuring safe operations until ending production in 2018.

Until 2024, Eider supplied power generation to the North Cormorant platform and the subsea controls and utilities for Otter.

Removing the topsides has reduced TAQA’s operational emissions from maintaining the platform and is part of a wider contract Allseas has with the operator.

In what TAQA claims to be the largest single UK decommissioning contract awarded to date, Allseas is responsible for engineering, preparation, removal and disposal of Eider and decommissioning programmes for the North Cormorant, Tern and Cormorant Alpha platforms.

Dismantling contracts for Cormorant Alpha and Tern topsides have been awarded to Able’s Seaton Port facility in the UK.

TAQA’s first major decommissioning project, Brae Bravo, was undertaken in 2022. This involved removing, disposal and recycling of the 36,000-tonne topsides and 11,000-tonne upper section of the steel jacket – with 95% reuse or recycling achieved.

Work has started on decommissioning TAQA’s Brae Alpha platform in the central North Sea with Pioneering Spirit selected to remove the 33,000-tonne topside and 12,000-tonne upper jacket in two separate campaigns.

TAQA has approvals to remove the topsides and upper jacket of the East Brae platform in the central North Sea after it halted production in 2025, and for the subsea infrastructure of the Braemar, Otter and Devenick fields.

Its plans for decommissioning and removing the upper jacket and subsea facilities of the Tern field and upper jacket of the North Cormorant platform are still under public consultation.

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