For more than 150 years, oil has fuelled economies across the globe. With a fast-paced technological development, a population boom and a hunger for resources, which have increased consumption of fossil fuels, it is no wonder that more and more oil and gas fields are in their maturity phase and are rapidly approaching or have already entered the depletion phase.<\/p>\n
Countries with offshore oil and gas industries are currently facing, or are going to face, decommissioning activities in their economic areas. Just in the North Sea there are more than 600 installations and more than 25000 km of underwater pipelines. With more and more fields approaching depletion, recent reports estimate decommissioning costs to go beyond 100 billion dollars. However, despite the staggering amounts involved, decommissioning raises also challenges with respect to contractual obligations, environmental liability, security agreements, accounting and taxation, re-use of installations and equipment or residual obligations.<\/p>\n
The conference is relevant to and aims to stir the interest of a large number of stakeholders: public authorities and regulators that are looking to develop best practice regulations, practitioners interested to know the current industry practices, legislative provisions and regulation in their own country or elsewhere, as well as scholars and students.<\/p>\n