Well Decommissioning Conference 2027 – 8-9 June 2027, P&J Live, Aberdeen

The leading conference for the wells decommissioning sector.

Call for Abstracts – deadline 5^th February 2027

Now in its 16th year, the SPE Well Decommissioning Conference is the UK’s leading platform for professionals driving well decommissioning and late-life operations forward, and increasingly an important forum for international operators, regulators and supply chain facing similar challenges in their respective geographical regions.

2026 and 2027 are shaping up to be the busiest years the sector has seen. The NSTA’s 2026 Cost and Performance Update puts the remaining UKCS decommissioning bill at £43.4bn, with well decommissioning the single largest component, around half of forecast spend to 2032. Operators worked on 257 wells in 2025 alone, yet a backlog of 500 inactive wells, plus over 1,000 more due in the next five years, means activity has to accelerate fast. In August 2026, NSTA and 17 operators signed a landmark Wellhead Severance Charter, committing to share data, vessels and expertise to bring down the average £700k cost of every wellhead removal - proof that collaboration isn’t a nice-to-have anymore, it’s the operating model.

Well Decommissioning 2027 brings operators, supply chain, regulators and academia from the UKCS and beyond together to share what’s working, challenge what isn’t, and set the agenda for the busiest period this industry has ever faced.

The 2027 themes

Priorities have moved on and so has the agenda. Themes for 2027 include but are not limited to:

• The Decision to Decommission - the business case, timing and triggers for moving from late-life to P&A
• Collaboration in Action — campaign alignment, unit-sharing and the Wellhead Severance Charter in practice
• Scaling for the Surge — contracting and supply chain strategies built for the 26/27 peak
• Rig, Rigless or Vessel? – choosing and combining the right unit selection
• Technology: Trial to Business-as-Usual — what’s actually being deployed, and what it took to get there
• Subsurface Certainty — optimise P&A design early for de-risked and efficient
• Sustained Annulus Pressure — understanding and managing existing well stock
• Data, Digital and AI — turning information into faster, better decommissioning decisions
• Legislation, Liability and Enforcement — keeping pace with NSTA’s evolving regulatory stance
• Global Lessons Sharing — international case studies and what the UKCS and other basins can learn from each other
• Wins, Challenges and What’s Next — transparent lessons learned from completed workscopes
• Academic Insights - and building the next generation of decommissioning pioneers

Abstracts are welcomed from the UKCS and from international basins. We want the lessons other regions have already learned.

Presentation format and what’s required:

Format: 20 minutes plus Q&A, or a 5-minute Techbyte (a punchy, sales-oriented pitch slot)

Send your 200-word abstract by 5^th February 2027 as a Word document with abstract title and presenter to conferences@spe-aberdeen.org

SPONSORSHIP AND EXHIBITION SPACE

Sponsorship packages will be released soon along with exhibition space. If you would like to register your interest, email conferences@spe-aberdeen.org