10 February 2017

Earlier this week, the First Minister has launched a new £5 million fund that will provide opportunities for the supply chain in Scotland to benefit from the decommissioning of North Sea infrastructure.

The Decommissioning Challenge Fund (DCF) will support infrastructure upgrades and innovation in salvage and transport methods at Scotland’s ports and harbours. It will also encourage engineering scoping work at key sites to build business cases that will attract further private investment.

FM @NicolaSturgeon launches £5m decommissioning fund at Sparrows in Aberdeen today https://t.co/OA93Wx4euk pic.twitter.com/uYBnDyohKG

— First Minister (@ScotGovFM) February 8, 2017

The First Minister launched the Fund at Sparrows, an Aberdeen based supply chain company with expertise in decommissioning that has just secured a major contract to provide 102 cranes to Scottish Power. The First Minister also visited exploration technology specialists Zilift Ltd.

Ms Sturgeon said:

With up to 20 billion barrels of oil and gas remaining, the Scottish Government’s top priority remains working with industry and stakeholders to maximise economic recovery from the North Sea.

The new £5 million Fund also recognises that decommissioning is an emerging, but growing, activity in the North Sea, with £17.6 billion expected to be spent in the North Sea over the next decade.

Scottish-based firms are already seizing opportunities, securing the lion’s share of value from a range of decommissioning activities, including project management of decommissioning programmes and high value well plugging and abandonment activity.”

You can watch the full video here: