🪦So… where do dead offshore rigs go?

Have you ever thought about what happens to those giant offshore oil rigs when they’re no longer pumping out gas?

No? Fair enough. But they’re probably not going to just sit there forever.

In fact, across Australia these sites will be decommissioned. And that’s about to start happening more often, from WA, to the NT and in Victoria.

🛢️ 13 rigs doing nothing in Victoria

Down in Victoria’s Bass Strait there are 23 offshore oil and gas rigs.

Nineteen of them are owned by ExxonMobil. And thirteen of those? Not producing a thing.

One of the big reasons for the shutdown is Australia’s push to move away from fossil fuels, aiming for net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

And why’s that happening?

Well — those emissions are heating the planet, and that’s turbocharging extreme weather: heatwaves, droughts, cyclones, floods and fires. 

Basically, everything’s more intense, more chaotic… and a little bit insecure.

Only going to get worse: the grim reality of Australia's climate future

“Once-in-100-year floods” and "unprecedented disasters” now seem to be happening every few years across Australia. The easy answer? “It’s climate change.” That’s not wrong, but it’s also not the whole picture.

www.nationalaccount.com.au/p/grim-reality-of-australia-climate-future

🛠️ Decommissioning Australia’s first rig

Victoria could now be home to Australia’s first ever offshore oil rig decommissioning. If it’s done right, it could set the benchmark for how to do it across the country.

ExxonMobil wants to decommission the rig in Gippsland at the Barry Beach Marine Terminal, but they’ll need approval from Environment Minister Murray Watt for each of the three stages:

  1. Building a site at the Marine Terminal

  2. Transporting the rigs there

  3. Dismantling the rigs

That’s a lot of sign-offs — but every step could have environmental consequences if it’s rushed or done poorly.

🌱 Environmentalists in support… of it being done right

Environmental campaigners — like Stanley Woodhouse from Friends of the Earth — support the decommissioning.

“But we want it to come out with really strict government oversight,” he added. “And the community being protected and the environment all being protected. Because whatever happens now in Victoria will be replicated around the rest of the country.” He said. 

He’s accused both the state and federal governments of being “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to the decommissioning. 

Woodhouse said some locals didn’t want the decommissioning to go ahead at all, “but a lot of them are actually fine for it to go ahead, if it can be shown by someone other than ExxonMobil, that it's not going to have far reaching environmental impacts”.


This story was first published on the Gippsland Monitor:

Can you safely remove an oil and gas rig from the ocean? Gippsland is about to find out

Australia will aim to decommission 5.7 million tonnes of material from offshore rigs over the next 30 years.

www.gippslandmonitor.com.au/p/remove-oil-gas-rig-from-ocean-gippsland

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