ISLAY SUBSURFACE AND NZTC WELL DECOM COLLAB

Over £20 billion. That's the projected cost to decommission 2,018 UKCS wells over the next decade. The Net Zero Technology Centre's Well Decommissioning Collaboration is tackling this challenge head-on. By bringing together seven operators—Harbour Energy, TotalEnergies, OKEA, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, Repsol, and Petrobras—the collaboration enables risk and cost-sharing for technology trials. Together with Islay Subsurface, they recently completed a multi-vendor through-tubing logging trial, solving a decade-long challenge: how to ensure successful through-tubing abandonments without pulling tubing. This partnership accelerates technology adoption and reduces costs across the entire industry.

TAQA WELL COMPLETIONS

The Norwegian Continental Shelf Sand Control Standardisation —a collaboration between TAQA and North Sea operators—has transformed deliveries of sand-control equipment. By aligning designs, qualification standards, manufacturing standards and introducing digital tracking across the supply chain, lead times have been cut from up to 30 weeks to just 12 weeks, with standard on shelf stock being available in as little as 2 weeks. Through shared inventory and reutilization of over 5,200 screen joints, the initiative eliminated 8,244 tonnes of CO₂—equivalent to 10,000 acres of forest sequestration annually. This is collaboration at scale: reducing costs, emissions, and waste while proving what's possible when an entire region chooses partnership and over isolation.

INTEGRITY ISS

When a client's FPSO suffered a major hull integrity failure below the waterline, the traditional solution would require a DSV. Instead, NEO NEXT partnered with Integrity ISS and Remotion to engineer a robotic approach. A magnetic ROV equipped with a bespoke cofferdam system enabled in-situ welding—a technique never before applied on an operational floating oil and gas asset in the UKCS. Completed within six months from concept to execution, with full approval from classification societies and flag authorities, this collaboration involved seven specialist companies. The result is a proven, innovative alternative that sets a new standard for offshore structural repair.

HARBOUR ENERGY / NEO NEXT

The Talbot and Affleck projects demonstrate the power of joint execution. Harbour Energy's Talbot field development provided the opportunity to recover the stranded Affleck field, shut in since 2016. By executing FEED scopes concurrently and tendering as a single project, the partners maximised synergies, reduced costs, and mitigated supply chain instability. The result? A previously uneconomic Talbot development and the stranded Affleck field brought into production through a joint approach that minimised execution risk and maximised economic recovery. This collaboration proves that shared challenges met with shared solutions deliver measurable results for all stakeholders.