Half of the oil and gas subsea facilities in Australia are close to reaching their end of life. There are currently 11 facilities and around 6000 km of flowlines to be decommissioned within the next 30 years. Decommissioned flowline waste will become a major disposal issue and environmental hazard. The project will drive the deployment of a new plant in Australia to upcycle this marine waste. An innovative process will be developed to recover steel and polymer materials the main constituents of flowlines. This project is developing the upcycling process and commercialise the recovered materials that would otherwise be landfilled.

Outcomes

• Enhanced Australian recycling industry capability
• Systematic dismantling and disjointing of decommissioned flowlines
• Automatic machinery for recovering decommissioned flowlines with reduced costs
• Characterisation of recovered materials to identify applications in a circular economy