Circular Decommissioning Strategy
for Offshore and Onshore Assets
Australia faces more than $60 billion in offshore decommissioning liabilities over the coming decades. For major operators, decommissioning is a balance sheet event, a regulatory pressure point, and an increasingly public scrutiny issue. The default approach, plug, abandon, remove, dispose, treats every dollar as sunk cost. We take a different view.
We apply circular economy thinking to decommissioning strategy: identifying material recovery pathways, evaluating technology options against financial and environmental criteria, and building decision frameworks that convert end-of-life liabilities into structured value recovery programmes. Not every dollar comes back. But far more value can be recovered than the industry currently assumes.
Estimated decommissioning liability Australian offshore assets
Oil and gas structuresin Australian waters
Our first decommissioning engagement in Australia
Our Decommissioning Journey
We didn’t come to decommissioning through policy or theory. We came to it through operations.
In 2012, we were involved in what became one of Australia’s first decommissioned facilities. That experience exposed a fundamental gap: the industry had detailed engineering plans for removal, but no framework for evaluating the circular economy opportunity embedded in end-of-life assets. Materials were being disposed of or downcycled by default, not because there was no value, but because no one had built a decision architecture to capture it.
That gap has shaped everything we’ve done since. Over more than a decade of decommissioning work, we’ve developed a proprietary Decommissioning Decision Model that connects engineering, environmental, financial, and circular economy considerations into a single decision framework.
2012
First engagement on one of Australia's earliest decommissioned facilities.
Identified the gap between engineering execution and circular value recovery.
2012 Onwards
Developed the Decommissioning Decision Model.
A structured framework for evaluating end-of-life pathways against financial, environmental, regulatory, and circular economy criteria.
Recent
Commissioned lifecycle assessments for major offshore asset classes.
Comparing EAF, pyrolysis, and material recovery pathways to ISO 14040/14044. Positioning to deliver the first compliant LCA of its kind for subsea flexible pipeline end-of-life in Australia.
The Problem With Default Decommissioning
The current approach to decommissioning in Australia is overwhelmingly linear: remove infrastructure, transport onshore, dismantle, send to scrap or landfill. This approach has three structural problems.
1. It treats material recovery as an afterthought
2. It ignores the Scope 3 dimension
3. Cost estimates consistently blow out
The Decommissioning Decision Model
The model connects four layers of analysis into a single decision architecture:
What materials and components exist in the asset? What condition are they in? What is the recovery potential for each material stream (steel, polymers, composites, subsea flexibles, umbilicals, risers)?
What is the net value recovery under each pathway, accounting for logistics, processing costs, market value, and risk? Where is the break-even point between disposal and recovery?
What processing technologies are available for each material stream? EAF, pyrolysis, mechanical recycling, component reuse? What are the comparative environmental and financial profiles of each?
What are the environmental impacts of each pathway across the full lifecycle? How do emissions, energy use, and material flows compare between options? LCA to ISO 14040/14044 provides the evidence base for regulatory submissions and board-level decision-making.
How We Work With Major Operators
Pre-decommissioning assessment of circular opportunity across the full asset. Material flow mapping, technology pathway evaluation, and value recovery sequencing. Designed to integrate with your existing decommissioning planning and NOPSEMA Environment Plan submissions.
Comparative LCA to ISO 14040/14044 for end-of-life pathways. We are positioned to deliver the first ISO-compliant LCA for subsea flexible pipeline end-of-life in Australia, a capability no other Australian firm currently offers for this asset class. LCA results feed directly into regulatory submissions, Scope 3 reporting, and investment case development.
Independent evaluation of processing technologies for complex material streams. We assess environmental performance, financial viability, scalability, and Australian supply chain readiness for each option. No vendor affiliations, no preferred technologies, just the analysis.
Deployment of our proprietary decision framework to your specific asset and operational context. Connects material characterisation, technology assessment, financial modelling, and LCA into a single decision architecture. Board-ready output with quantified value recovery scenarios and risk tiers.
Connecting your decommissioning programme to your broader Scope 3 strategy and AASB S2 climate disclosure requirements. Decommissioning generates emissions, but circular decommissioning generates avoided emissions that can be quantified and reported. We build the methodology to capture both.
Why Evolveable
Most decommissioning advisors are engineering firms. Most circular economy consultants have never been on a rig. We sit at the intersection.
Our team are chartered environmental engineers with decades on the operator side of oil and gas and heavy infrastructure. We’ve managed environmental approvals, run operational trade-offs, and sat in the investment review meetings where decommissioning budgets are set. That operator experience is why we built the Decommissioning Decision Model the way we did: not as an academic exercise, but as a tool that survives contact with procurement, finance, and regulatory reality.
We’ve been working on decommissioning in Australia since 2012. We understand the NOPSEMA regulatory framework, the Environment Plan process, the Australian Government’s Offshore Resources Decommissioning Roadmap, and the Decommissioning Directorate’s priorities. And we understand the commercial reality: decommissioning is a cost centre that operators want to manage, not expand. Our job is to find the value that’s already there.
The Regulatory Environment
Decommissioning regulation in Australia is tightening. Operators need to be across the following developments:
Five-year strategy with time-based targets for decommissioning wells, structures, and property. NOPSEMA has issued directions to multiple operators requiring improved planning and execution. Trailing liability provisions mean former titleholders can be called back.
Released December 2024. Establishes the Offshore Decommissioning Directorate. Focuses on growing domestic decommissioning capability, improving regulatory transparency, and maximising economic benefit. Financial assurance reforms are under consideration.
Mandatory from January 2025 for Group 1 entities. Scope 3 reporting is now required. Decommissioning emissions, and the avoided emissions from circular recovery, will need to be quantified and disclosed. Operators who build this capability early will be ahead of the reporting curve.
Changes to the OPGGS Act mean that companies who sell assets can still be held liable for decommissioning costs if the new titleholder fails. This raises the stakes for decommissioning planning at every stage of the asset lifecycle, not just end-of-life.
We’ll start with your specific asset context and show you where the circular value sits.