Decommissioning of Offshore Platforms in Adriatic Sea: The Total Removal Option from a Life Cycle Assessment Perspective

Abstract

The international energy scenario to date is heavily based on fossil energy sources such as coal, oil or natural gas. According to the international ecological goals of the UNFCCC formalized in the legally binding treaty called the Paris Agreement, the next global challenges will be the decommissioning, dismantling or reconversion of the current fossil energy system into a new, more sustainable system that makes more efficient use of renewable energy technologies. Worldwide, there are about 6500 offshore oil and gas facilities and about 130 of them are located in the Mediterranean basin, mainly in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas: more than 110 offshore gas platforms have been installed in these areas since 1960. In this paper, using Life Cycle Assessment, the environmental and economic impacts of the total removal operations of an existing offshore platform in the context of the Adriatic Sea are assessed based on existing and registered decommissioning projects. In addition, the avoided impacts of primary steel production due to its recovery and recycling from the removed platform are assessed using the system boundary expansion method.