Illustrative mission case
Civil · Offshore decommissioning
Evidence before an irreversible removal decision.
An ageing offshore structure can be both a liability and a colonised artificial habitat. Operators need evidence strong enough to compare environmental outcomes, cost and long-term responsibility before the removal plan hardens.
£43.4bn
Remaining UKCS decommissioning forecast
The 2026 NSTA estimate illustrates the scale of the decisions still ahead for operators, the supply chain and the public purse.
Decision at stake
What outcome is justified by the evidence?
OSPAR 98/3 makes removal the regulatory starting point. Where an alternative may legally be considered, the ecological condition and consequences must be understood alongside safety, technical, societal and economic factors.
Practical barrier
High-cost vessel surveys are typically episodic. Widely spaced snapshots can miss seasonal change and weaken the environmental baseline. Where evidence remains incomplete, corporate risk tolerance understandably favours the legally clear removal route even if another permitted outcome might reduce cost and environmental disturbance.
Andrasta system response
01
Repeat the same evidence route
Waypoint-led observation can return to the same structure, elevations and habitat features without rebuilding the campaign each time.
02
Stay across the decision window
Continuous service or hibernation between tasks supports multi-day and multi-week evidence gathering around weather, works and ecological change.
03
Intervene when evidence changes
Persistent presence allows anomalies or uncertainty to trigger focused follow-up while the finding is still relevant to the decision.
Decision value
Denser, more comparable evidence can reduce avoidable offshore cost, strengthen the operator’s decision basis and protect genuine habitat value where the regulatory route permits it to be considered.