North Sea firm secures £26m funding boost

An oil and gas decommissioning firm founded by a group of industry veterans has secured a £26 million investment to accelerate growth.

Well-Safe's recently acquired West Epsilon rig adds to its growing fleet of assets for oil and gas decommissioning work.

Since it was launched in 2017, Aberdeen-headquartered Well-Safe has grown to employ 80 staff on and offshore.

The further investment into the decommissioning company was led by London-based MW&L Capital Partners following its initial backing of £66m to the company last October.

The funding comes after the recent acquisition of Well-Safe’s second asset, the West Epsilon jack-up rig, from Seadrill. An upgrade and modification programme is now under way on the rig ahead of its deployment on decommissioning projects in early 2021.

Alasdair Locke, the former head of oil services company Abbot Group who is chairman and majority shareholder in Well-Safe, said the business has the “delivery model and capability that will revolutionise how we approach well decommissioning”.

He added: “It is committed to providing a world-class offering and has the skills, tools and experience to become a market leader in this exciting yet pivotal phase of our industry.”

Julian Metherell of MW&I, which was founded by two former Goldman Sachs partners, said Well-Safe had an “experienced team with dedicated decommissioning capability willing to tackle one of the industry’s greatest challenges with massive global potential”.

The acquisition of the West Epsilon jack-up rig is expected to lead to an additional 100 jobs at the company. It acquired its first rig, the Well-Safe Guardian, last year. Although upgrade operations had to be halted earlier this year because of Covid-19, work has since resumed.

Expenditure on decommissioning in the UK Continental Shelf is forecast to be in excess of £15 billion in the next decade. Well decommissioning accounts for almost half of total spend, equating to some £7.5bn spend over the next decade. About 5,000 wells, of which 1,000 are subsea, require to be decommissioned in the North Sea.

Well-Safe was set up by Locke and fellow industry veterans Paul Warwick and Mark Patterson. It expects to eventually create around 400 jobs.

Locke began his career in investment banking with Citigroup in 1974, where he specialised in shipping and oil. His other business interests include the Glenrinnes Distillery.

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