Assessing and Reporting Potential Environmental Risks Associated with Reefing Oil Platform During Decommissioning in Qatar

Abstract

Decommissioning obsolete oil platforms in the upcoming decades in Qatar, through a complete removal, will imply a major loss of the fouling biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions and services. The rig-to-reef approach, successfully implemented in other seas of the world, provides an attractive alternative to the complete removal by reefing the underwater oilrig structures and theoretically provides positive environmental, economic, and social benefits to a wide range of stakeholders. This manuscript critically reports and analyzes the risks associated with the implementation of the rig-to-reef approach in Qatar oilfields by using a DPSIR conceptual framework focusing on the pressures, states, impacts, and responses. By portraying reefing approaches as an issue, several pressures were identified including potential navigational safety issue, pollution, and physical disturbances. These pressures are expected to modify the physical, biological, and chemical state of the ecosystems, potentially leading to several impacts, such as the loss of habitats, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services. The identified hazards and their potential risks were analyzed, and these seemed to be outweighed by the potential benefits of reefing obsolete oil platforms. Nevertheless, the critical impairment to the rig-toreef implementation, mainly associated to existing regulatory frameworks, should be addressed.

To What Extent Can Decommissioning Options for Marine Artificial Structures Move Us Toward Environmental Targets?

“…For instance, maintenance of connectivity as a result of introducing hard bottom species/habitats into sedimentary environments (van der Molen et al, 2018;Tidbury et al, 2020), can underpin stability in ecological networks (Melià et al, 2016;Clubley et al, 2023), structure biodiversity across geographic space (Cristiani et al, 2021), and ensure genetic diversity, population development and growth across multiple spatial scales (Baguette et al, 2013;Hogan et al, Ross et al, 2017). Given global rates of habitat loss and fragmentation and degradation of habitats (Reddin et al, 2022), either the maintenance or addition of 'novel' habitat as a result of MAS could support biodiversity conservation efforts (Ben-Hamadou et al, 2023;van Elden et al, 2022). Indeed, developers are asked to not only consider mitigation measures but also compensation measures, such as recreating habitat to accommodate lost ecological structure and functions.…”