Towards sustainable decommissioning and closure of oil fields and mines: A toolkit to assist government agencies

Globally, an increasing number of mines and hydrocarbon fields are nearing depletion, following decades of resource exploitation. These operations and the associated infrastructure will require complex and costly dismantling; technical and environmental restoration and rehabilitation measures; and socioeconomic investments to counteract retrenchment, post-closure economic downturns and other effects associated with the end of the project’s productive life. At the same time, new operations are being planned in more challenging socio-environmental contexts, many in resource-rich developing economies that will need to consider the availability of financial resources, technical approaches and cleanup standards as well as community wellbeing during the planning phase to avoid significant socio-environmental liabilities. The intent of this toolkit is to serve as a resource to support the development of flexible but systematic regulatory approaches to key components of a sustainable decommissioning and closure planning and implementation process. We hope that this toolkit can, over time, be improved with additional guidelines and details based on lessons learned from practical applications.