The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) recently announced that it wished to procure specialised environmental and engineering consultancy services to support its functions relating to the regulation of offshore oil, gas and condensate exploration, production and decommissioning activities, and the regulation of natural gas and carbon dioxide storage and decommissioning activities, on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). The estimated contract value is GPB 1.5 million.
The environmental support services will include studies relating to the control, impact assessment and mitigation of both atmospheric emissions and marine discharges; and the engineering support will include technical studies and process modelling associated with offshore installations, production chemistry, subsea production/injection, pipelines and terminals.
In addition, DECC says, the service provider should be capable of evaluating novel petroleum production and process engineering solutions, including performing an economic analysis of the alternative technologies, and capable of undertaking specialist studies in relation to technical and environmental aspects of installation and pipeline decommissioning.
Since the range of the services could be very wide, it would be acceptable for certain specialist skills to be accessed through associations or alliances with other companies possessing those skills, or to contract out elements of the work, although it will be expected that the service provider will undertake the core work and be responsible for the overall management of any out-sourced activities. The service provider will also be required to clearly indicate which, if any, specialist skills would be out-sourced, as DECC approval will be required for any proposed sub-contractor.
[mappress] Source: DECC,September 23, 2011;