Top ten research priorities on decommissioning offshore oil and gas structures - Research questions from global experts - (NESP MaC 1.19, Deakin)

This dataset consists of an Excel spreadsheet representing an expert elicitation process of determining priority research areas for the decommissioning of ocean-based oil and gas structures. Further description of this process is provided in the 'Offshore decommissioning horizon scan: Research priorities to support decision-making activities for oil and gas infrastructure' paper by Sarah Watson et. al. 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163015.

A global horizon scan was undertaken, eliciting input from an interdisciplinary cohort of 35 global experts to develop the top ten priority research needs to further inform decommissioning decisions and advance our understanding of their potential impacts. The resulting highest research priorities included: (1) an assessment of impacts of contaminants and their acceptable environmental limits to reduce potential for ecological harm; (2) defining risk and acceptability thresholds in policy/governance; (3) characterising liability issues of ongoing costs and responsibility; and (4) quantification of impacts to ecosystem services. The remaining top ten priorities included: (5) quantifying ecological connectivity; (6) assessing marine life productivity; (7) determining feasibility of infrastructure re-use; (8) identification of stakeholder views and values; (9) quantification of greenhouse gas emissions; and (10) developing a transdisciplinary decommissioning decision-making process.

Methods:
We used a horizon-scan process with leading global experts on the decommissioning of offshore O&G infrastructure (excluded from the scope was P&A of subsea wells), from across a range of fields (science/academia; industry; and policy-making) and technical disciplines (environmental; societal, technical, economic; and policy/governance). Experts were selected based on their: publications on the topic; extent of relevant work (within academia, industry, or a relevant competent authority); or substantial involvement (e.g., chair) of an international industry association specialising in decommissioning. The aim of the expert selection process was to ensure representation across all geographical regions, fields of work, and technical disciplines, as applicable to offshore decommissioning activities

Based on these criteria, an invitation to participate was sent to identified experts (n = 65), from which n = 35 responded, providing: a list of the most important questions/research areas on decommissioning in their view, and a completed experience matrix, indicating offshore O&G decommissioning-related experience by geographical region(s), field(s) of work, and technical discipline(s).

The full list of collated questions (n = 257; from the 35 experts' responses; S-Table 3) were categorised into five disciplinary areas, 15 topics, and 38 sub-topics, grouped according to similarity by the project team leaders (SW, DM, EC, PM; S-Table 2). Categorised responses were subsequently presented to experts at an online workshop, where further discussion on the transdisciplinary nature of the topic, and how best to address within future research, was facilitated (S-Tables 2,3). Following the workshop, the experts voted (n = 32), providing their opinion of the most important sub-topics needing to be addressed by future research to fill critical knowledge gaps (S-Table 4). At this point, due to conflicting time commitments, three withdrew from the vote with their self-identified expertise representing East Asian Seas, South Pacific, and Global regions, and spanning all fields of work and technical disciplines. All votes were collated, and the sub-topics were ordered based on total numbers of votes (S-Table 5), which formed the consensus for the top ten research priorities.

Limitations:
Note: This dataset does not contain a mapping between the experts and the original questions that they voted for, but instead a mapping between the expert and the sub-topic of questions that they voted for. This dataset does not list the final prioritised set of questions. These are listed in the associated paper (Watson et al., 2023). The goal of the voting was to determine the final priority sub topics, not a ranking of the highest priority collated questions. As a result the final priority questions are based on the priority sub-topics and an amalgamation of the prioritised questions within that sub-topic.

Data format:
This dataset consists of 6 sheets with the following tables:

- ST-1:
1. Background of Experts by Geographical Region (G - Global, EAS - East Asian Seas (COBSEA), including NW Australia, NEA - North-east Atlantic (OSPAR Convention), NEP - North-east Pacific (Antigua Convention) including USA-California & Non-arctic Alaska, SP - South Pacific (Nouméa Convention) including SE Australia & New Zealand)
2. Background of Experts by Field of Work (S - Science/Academia, I - Industry, P - Policy)
3. Background of Experts by Technical Discipline (EN - Environmental, SO – Societal (including safety of others), TE – Technical (including safety of workers), EC - Economic, PO - Policy/Governance)

- ST-2:
Categorisation of the collated questions organised into 15 topics and 38 subtopics.

- ST-3:
List of the 257 questions collated from 35 experts, along with the ID of the expert who posed the question.

- ST-4:
Summary of votes by experts, broken down into the topics and subtopics. Each expert was given a total weight of 10 votes. The scores of each expert were normalised to 10 votes, so those that prioritised more than 10 questions were down weighted (to a total of 10) and those with less questions were up weighted (to a total of 10).

- ST-5:
Ranking of the issues/opportunities showing the number of votes received by each sub-topic and their associated priority ranking.

- ST-6:
Characterisation of the experts that voted for each final priorities research sub-topic, indicating their, field of work, technical discipline and region.

References:
Watson, S. M., McLean, D. L., Balcom, B. J., Birchenough, S. N. R., Brand, A. M., Camprasse, E. C. M., Claisse, J. T., Coolen, J. W. P., Cresswell, T., Fokkema, B., Gourvenec, S., Henry, L.-A., Hewitt, C. L., Love, M. S., MacIntosh, A. E., Marnane, M., McKinley, E., Micallef, S., Morgan, D., … Macreadie, P. I. (2023). Offshore decommissioning horizon scan: Research priorities to support decision-making activities for oil and gas infrastructure. Science of The Total Environment, 878, 163015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163015

Location of the data:
This dataset is primarily hosted as a supplemental table in Watson et al., 2023. A copy of this dataset is filed in the eAtlas enduring data repository at: data\custodian\2021-2022-NESP-MaC-1\1.19_Decomissioning-oil-gas-infrastructure\data\original