Hard North Sea decisions loom

Sir, - Breaking up is so very hard and expensive as we shall learn as we say goodbye to three of the four of Scotland’s Brent oil platforms.

There’s much to be considered as we start out on this colossal journey.

The engineering is set to be on a mammoth scale and will probably use up all the profits remaining from the Brent field.

Shell, one of the two major owners of the platforms, expects to remove 24,000 tonnes of mostly steel from its Delta platform next year.

Meanwhile, a huge ship will be built to carry that structure to wherever it’ll be broken up. Some truly enormous contracts are likely and lots of jobs too.

The most likely destination for the up-rooted platforms is with our neighbours on the Tees Estuary. Teesside already has a long track record in breaking up difficult and dangerous marine structures.

There’s a steel plant alongside that already gobbles up scrap metals ready for fresh use in cars, kettles and razor blades.

Taking down three of the four Brent platforms is only the start of a giant, if temporary, jobs bonanza. There are thousands of wells to be plugged on the sea bed, 6,000 miles of pipelines and nearly 500 platforms to be lifted and scrapped.

The costs will be horrendous and may wipe out all the prospective profits and tax revenues from our oil industry.

That is unless the Arab-led coalition holds together and oil markets start to grow again.

If the oil price should fall again, we’ll need to subsidise the decommissioning or leave dangerous structures at sea.

These are big issues we should all expect our parliaments to chew over. Andrew Dundas. 34 Ross Avenue, Perth.