In 2013-2016, RESL was awarded the contract by PetroSA, the de facto national oil company of South Africa, to progress their decommissioning planning for all their offshore and onshore facilities. Realising that this was potentially precedent-setting for South Africa and that, at the time, there was no internal or regulator guidance on decommissioning, RESL developed guidelines for PetroSA use. Working with PetroSA, RESL engaged with all the various regulators in South Africa with decision-making responsibility or influence in developing these guidelines.
These PetroSA guidelines formed the basis for the decommissioning and well P&A planning, including the AACE class 4 and 3 cost estimating.
As a result, the risk-based guideline delivered a Risked-Best-Case-Scenario that was 57% lower in cost than the Base-Case.
Following a global bidding contest in 2022, RESL was appointed to assist the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) with two separate studies: an onshore legacy wells risk assessment and development of well P&A guidelines and an offshore decommissioning study. The Agency is responsible for specified functions concerning managing rights to explore for and produce oil and gas in South Africa, including decommissioning.
RESL produced a series of strategic, confidential internal reports on well P&A, the data of which was later used to develop the guidelines. The offshore study also included several other confidential work scopes for the Agency, which were aimed at assisting the Agency in building capacity to regulate and monitor decommissioning-related activities offshore South Africa.
By November 2022, RESL produced three guidelines as one of the recommended short-term interventions for the Agency.
This journey shows our long-term commitment to growing decommissioning expertise within a country and working with regulators and operators.