The Brent field is situated in the North Sea 116 miles offshore, north-east of Lerwick, Scotland. It consists of four large platforms; Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta. After 40 years of producing oil and gas, the field is now being taken out of service, or ‘decommissioned’.
Decommissioning Brent is a complex, major engineering project, because of its size, age, the type of infrastructure, and the harsh environment of the North Sea. Our recommendation for Brent is to remove the topsides of the four platforms to shore for recycling, leaving the legs in the sea.
Our recommendations are the result of 10 years of research, involving more than 300 scientific and technical studies. We established an independent group of scientific experts to review the findings and ensure all feasible decommissioning options were investigated thoroughly. We submitted our recommendations to the UK Government following extensive stakeholder engagement involving over 180 different organisations, and only when we were confident that they were safe, technically achievable, environmentally sound and socially and economically responsible.
Read more about our stakeholder engagement