Placed on the quays of the municipality of Stord, three gigantic and obsolete modules, or 40,000 tons of materials in total, are waiting to be dismantled and reduced to pieces.

And to be 98% recycled.

"If you come back here in a year and a half, you won't see anything," says Sturla Magnus, a senior manager of Aker Solutions, a group specializing in the construction of oil and gas installations, but with a helmet on his head. also in their dismantling.

Behind him, workers are busy around the three behemoths: the Gyda deposit platform, closed in 2020, and two others from the Valhall deposit, still in operation, but which have had their day.

Once the safety inspections have been carried out, the electrical equipment and then the dangerous materials such as asbestos are removed, before the rest, huge shells now empty, are delivered to the giant shears of the machines.

Among the most valued -- and most ubiquitous -- waste are tens of thousands of tons of high-quality steel that can be reused in new platforms, industrial structures or even offshore wind turbines.

If, even today, the company builds more oil installations than it demolishes, it praises the virtues of such recycling.

According to various estimates, a kilo of recycled steel represents between 58 and 70% less greenhouse gas emissions than a kilo of brand new steel.

10,000 installations to be dismantled

As the North Sea is one of the most mature hydrocarbon basins in the world, many oil and gas platforms are reaching the end of their life there.

In a 2021 report, the trade association Oil and Gas UK (OGUK), which has since become Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), estimated the total volume of platforms in these waters to be scrapped at more than 1 million tonnes. the decade.

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A huge and growing market.

A few years ago, the OGUK placed this figure at 200,000 tonnes.

"If you look globally, it's probably close to 10,000 installations that are going to come ashore at some point," Magnus said.

At Aker Solutions, the load plan stretches until 2028.

Some grannies resist.

One of Norway's oldest oil rigs, Statfjord A, in operation since 1979, was due to be condemned in 2022 but energy giant Equinor decided in 2020 to extend its life to 2027.

Ditto for the two other installations of this hydrocarbon field, Statfjord B and C, barely more recent but extended at least until 2035.

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A reprieve motivated by the remaining reserves, supposedly still “considerable”, and which the recent surge in the price of a barrel has undoubtedly had to further consolidate.

Ecological interest

Everything must therefore disappear?

Not in the opinion of some environmentalists.

According to the Norwegian branch of Friends of the Earth, the concrete feet of the first installations - subsequently, metal bases were preferred - constitute "fantastic" artificial corals with their holes and roughness.

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“Anyone who has worked on a rig will tell you: there are a lot of big fish that live nearby because there is no industrial fishing there and the fish can reach ten years of age,” explains the marine biologist Per-Erik Schulze, adviser to the organization.

The NGO therefore recommends leaving the concrete pillars in place – stripped of the rest and, in any case, extremely complex to remove – and establishing marine protected areas around them.

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In a nod to history, after decades of siphoning off the depths of the oceans, the oil sector would thus make a modest contribution to their protection.

© 2022 AFP