Economic feasibility study of offshore wind turbine application on oil and gas jacket structures as an alternative to decommissioning in Persian Gulf

Dealing with the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas infrastructures is a relatively new challenge to most oil and gas producing countries. It is obvious that experiences in building platforms are much greater than the ones in dismantling them worldwide. Complexity and costly nature of operations involving in decommissioning process requires huge investments to be done during the lifetime of the field for its decommissioning phase of the total project. Companies prefer to postpone the decommissioning phase by redevelopments as much economic as possible. Eventually if there is no other alternative for the platform to continue its economic lifetime, the company will select the strategy of decommissioning at the point of economic deficiency for the platform. There are some innovative alternatives to decommissioning which are depended on availability of tourism, aquaculture or environmental energy potentials. This paper offers an innovative alternative strategy selection method and introduces the alternative option of installing offshore wind turbines (OWT) on an abandoned platforms jacket; considering costs and benefits study between two strategies; one total decommissioning and the other one installing an OWT on the jacket of a local platform in Persian Gulf