Costain strengthens decommissioning capability

Company appoints Eamonn McGennis as decommissioning lead based in Aberdeen

Costain is strengthening its oil and gas decommissioning capability in response to the slump in oil prices, which has led to operators retire older facilities.

The company has appointed Eamonn McGennis as decommissioning lead, based in the Costain Upstream office in Aberdeen, to direct this new emphasis.

McGennis’ extensive experience in the field includes retiring the Camelot platform in the southern North Sea.

He said: “Until now, the industry focus has primarily been on new developments, brownfield modifications and platform work, where it has all been about increasing and enhancing existing production.

“Decommissioning was very much on the back end of that. It was very much a secondary activity.”

The company has also created a decommissioning team to take advantage of its employees’ expertise in this field.

Costain said: “It will allow us to build upon the decommissioning experience we already have in oil and gas by pulling in expertise from other parts of the Group such as civils and nuclear, where Costain has had a huge amount of experience.”

Costain said there will be particular emphasis on a collaborative approach with customers. “In civils and utilities, margins are incredibly tight. We’ll be bringing this discipline to the upstream sector,” the company said.

“We’ll be using lessons learned in sectors like highways authorities and Network Rail. Those organisations have had to embrace collaboration because of increasingly tight financial constraints.”