Enrico Salardi has been appointed as Xodus' decommissioning director to work alongside its decommissioning lead Peter Tipler, who will focus on delivering the innovation, collaboration and strategic solutions needed to cut what promises to be monumental costs for operators.

 

As several assets in the North Sea reach the end of their lifespan, the latest cost estimate from the Oil and Gas Authority has predicted the cost of decommissioning the UK Continental Shelf oil and gas infrastructure is £59.7 billion (A$98.5 billion) with an ambitious goal of completing this work for less than £39 billion.

 

Salardi was with Quadrant's predecessor, Apache Energy, when it and Santos decommissioned the Legendre field facilities and equipment in Commonwealth waters off Western Australia's coast in 2011.

 

Quadrant also removed the navigation communication control buoy from the East Spar field as part of the broader field's decommissioning process.

 

After stints with Italian oiler Eni in Italy, Norway, Libya and back to Italy again, the company sent him to Australia in 2008 to project manage the Kitan project execution comprising the development of a subsea field in the Timor Sea with an FPSO tied back to subsea wells. 

 

He then switched to Apache in 2012 as project manager for the Coniston oil project then ran the Julimar gas project the following year, the company's first LNG project and its biggest development to date - US$4 billion including Apache's share in Wheatstone at the time.

 

In April 2015 when Brookfield Asset Management and Macquarie Capital bought Apache's WA assets in June 2015, Salardi was tasked with decommissioning the Harriet assets it owned with Kufpec including 17 platforms, a subsea manifold, more than 300km of pipelines, more than 50 offshore wells and onshore facilities.

 

Now he has turned his skills to the UK, where he believes Xodus has been "ahead of the game" regarding decommissioning, from advising governments to strategic planning.

 

"I am joining a very experienced team that has worked on managing processes and the execution of work on many assets in the North Sea and around the world," he said.

 

"I hope my knowledge will add to this and provide the team with an insight into what challenges the operators are facing and how we can help ease the demanding process of decommissioning, including reducing associated costs."

 

"Enrico has vast experience of working at all stages of an asset's lifecycle and his recent work in directly managing a decommissioning project will provide our team with valuable insight of an operator's perspective," Xodus CEO Wim van der Zande said.

 

"He will bring his learnings from global decommissioning projects to our key areas, including the North Sea, which we hope will lead to further cost savings for our clients."

 

Xodus' integrated capabilities cover the entire offshore decommissioning process from facility design to project execution and long-term monitoring and can help clients ensure that their requirements are understood and managed.

 

In 2015, Tipler helped form Xodus' decom division which has since undertaken more than 100 decommissioning projects globally ranging from mergers and acquisition due diligence and commercial advice, to training and detailed planning and approvals for decom execution.

 

He recently helped Xodus deliver a decommissioning "trend survey" to Japanese government organisation JOGMEC to provide oil and gas companies there with a better understanding of the decommissioning process and how to manage their global asset and abandonment liabilities.