Spirit Energy wraps up three-well North Sea decommissioning campaign
Spirit Energy completed a $55 million decommissioning campaign in the UK Southern North Sea, plugging and abandoning three subsea wells between April and July 2026. The campaign covered the Seven Seas and Grove G5 production wells and the Grove Deep exploration well, and involved more than 30 UK supply chain partners, including DeepOcean and Well-Safe Solutions. Well-Safe’s Well-Safe Protector jackup rig was deployed to both Seven Seas and Grove G5 to carry out reservoir abandonment activities before returning to Aberdeen.
DeepOcean’s construction support vessel Edda Freya carried out enabling works at both locations ahead of the rig’s arrival, removing a 100-tonne wellhead protection structure at Seven Seas, approximately 60 km off the East Yorkshire coast, before moving to Grove G5, 131 km east of the Norfolk coast, where ROV operations disconnected subsea infrastructure. The overall campaign involved more than 114,000 work hours and multiple offshore vessels operating alongside ROV systems.
Seven Seas and Grove G5 collectively produced approximately 56 Bcf of natural gas during their operating lives; Grove G5 produced from 2008 to 2019, while Seven Seas operated from 2012 until production ceased in 2024. Spirit Energy said all 234-plus tonnes of subsea materials recovered during the campaign are expected to be reused or recycled at UK yards, in line with the North Sea Transition Authority’s Decommissioning Charter.
