LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) - Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal DutchShell will start dismantling its nearly 40-year-oldBrent Delta platform in the North Sea in 2017, a senior managersaid, delaying the process by around one year.
Brent Delta, as tall as the Eiffel Tower, is the first offour Brent platforms to be decommissioned and one of the firstlarge-scale projects to dismantle a depleted North Sea oilfield.
The start of the complex work, which has been planned for 10years, has been delayed to next year after it took longer thanexpected to equip the specialist vessel which will transport the25,000-tonne topside of the platform to Hartlepool harbour whereit will be taken apart.
The exact time for work to start is difficult to predictbecause Shell's decommissioning plan still requires variousapprovals, said Duncan Manning, business opportunity manager forShell's Brent decommissioning project.
His team aims to submit a detailed decommissioning plan toBritain's energy ministry by the end of the year. A 60-dayconsultation will then collect feedback from the public whichthe ministry will forward to the OSPAR Commission, which groups15 governments in protecting the marine environment of thenorth-east Atlantic.
Britain's industry group Oil and Gas UK estimatesdismantling its oil and gas fields could cost around 17 billionpounds ($23 billion) between 2015 and 2024.($1 = 0.7528 pounds) (Reporting by Karolin Schaps; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
