At the 2025 Decommissioning & Abandonment (D&A) Conference in Perth, Shane McWhinney from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) provided a significant update on the Commonwealth-managed decommissioning of the Northern Endeavour FPSO.

Power was successfully restored to the vessel on Tuesday evening, ending a seven-week outage that began on 22 April—just days after the completion of a major riser cutting campaign. The unexpected shutdown was caused by simultaneous issues: planned maintenance on the main generators and a failure of the emergency diesel generator.

“We were feeling pretty confident after the riser campaign—then just days later, the power went completely out,” McWhinney said. “But we got it back on. It took seven weeks, and now we’re back in action.”

Despite the loss of power and the need to evacuate the vessel, DISR was able to maintain momentum by continuing hull cleaning operations during the outage. This was made possible after securing a new safety case from NOPSEMA, the national offshore energy regulator.

Now with power restored, the project is entering a critical phase. The team is only months away from cutting the mooring chains that currently secure the FPSO in place. Once detached, the vessel will be towed to Singapore, selected as the safest and most cost-effective location to complete hull cleaning and seaworthiness preparation, using both wet and dry docks.

Following this, the FPSO will be loaded onto a Costco heavy-lift vessel and transported to its final decommissioning site—still to be confirmed.

As the dismantling phase progresses, the focus will shift to seabed remediation, involving the cleanup and safe abandonment of extensive subsea infrastructure. According to McWhinney, there are:

• 9 subsea wells

• 7 Christmas trees

• 50 km of flowlines

• 20 km of umbilicals

• 3 subsea manifolds

• 9 mooring chains in 3 groups

• 9 suction pile anchors

This major decommissioning project, triggered by the 2020 collapse of Northern Oil & Gas Australia (NOGA), is being closely watched across the industry for its regulatory, environmental, and cost implications. The restoration of power marks a major step forward toward finalising this complex and high-profile operation.

Source: Energy News Bulletin