Offshore-Decommissioning Marine-Readiness Board Adviser

The mandate

Three North Sea removal campaigns share scarce heavy-lift tonnage, towage, reception-yard space and a narrow weather season, but each project presents readiness through a different contractor lens. Vessel availability is shown without mobilising-port constraints; lift studies stop at deck landing; waste plans assume a yard can receive changing piece size and contamination status; and schedule float is counted twice across offshore and port work. The joint venture board needs an independent challenge before it locks vessel options and sanctions consecutive campaigns.

The board has bought a fixed eleven-month challenge window, not an automatically renewing role. Its three-day monthly service allowance is deployed around six risk-committee sessions and five focused reviews offshore, aboard a vessel or at a reception yard. During the first ten weeks, the adviser must reconcile all three marine bases of plan and isolate their incompatible assumptions. Each campaign then receives its own pre-sanction challenge, followed by one combined weather-and-capacity rehearsal before initial mobilisation. The closing session is reserved for proving that every open condition has an owner, an expiry and a stated board consequence.

Acceptance requires one evidence chain from offshore preparation through lift, deck securing, transit, tow contingency, port entry, quayside transfer and verified reception. Each campaign must have a dated critical-vessel position, compatible port and yard envelope, explicit metocean basis, credible abort and refuge choices, and a quantified consequence if a shared asset slips. The board must see at least two executable sequence choices and know which uncertainty remains owner-retained rather than disguised inside contractor contingency.

The adviser may inspect contractor and owner evidence, visit assets and yards, request independent reconciliation within an agreed allowance, challenge readiness ratings, and recommend conditions before sanction or mobilisation. The role has no line authority and cannot approve engineering, lifting, vessel fitness, marine warranty, waste classification, environmental permit, contract award or offshore execution. Competing partner interests, contractor conflicts and disclosed commercial relationships go to the risk-committee chair. Asset owners, dutyholder, masters, competent authorities, warranty surveyor and authorised technical accountabilities retain those decisions.

Well plugging, dismantling design, tax relief, liability allocation, commercial negotiation, environmental advocacy and contractor performance management are outside scope. The adviser will test the interfaces those activities create for marine execution but will not rerun specialist assurance or represent a bidder. A red condition must state the absent evidence and decision consequence, not substitute personal judgement for an accountable signatory.

Why the board wants this voice

The venture partners receive polished project dashboards but cannot compare readiness because contractors use different boundaries, confidence language and schedule treatment. Project teams are incentivised to retain their preferred vessel windows, while marine warranty reviews do not resolve portfolio competition for ports and shared assets. A board adviser is needed to make cross-campaign fragility visible before commitments become expensive to unwind.

What you will own

• Reconcile the three campaign bases across removal sequence, vessel spread, metocean limit, port envelope and yard reception.
• Trace every major component from offshore release through lift, securing, transit, transfer, quarantine and accepted downstream custody.
• Test heavy-lift, towage, support-vessel and berth availability against mobilisation, certification and preceding-job overrun exposure.
• Expose double-counted weather or schedule allowance and model the portfolio consequence of a shared asset missing its window.
• Challenge abort, safe-state, tow contingency and reception alternatives without assuming that contractual standby creates physical capacity.
• Frame sanction and mobilisation conditions with evidence owner, accountable decision-maker, due date and consequence if unmet.
• Leave the committee a comparable readiness ledger, two executable sequences and a monitored uncertainty retirement calendar.

Candidate qualifications

• Held marine, installation or decommissioning assurance responsibility for complex offshore removal campaigns in harsh-water environments.
• Has stopped or resequenced mobilisation when vessel, lift, weather, towage, port or yard evidence did not join operationally.
• Understands heavy-lift spreads, sea fastening, tow, marine warranty, metocean windows, port handling and waste reception interfaces.
• Can distinguish owner-retained uncertainty from contractor contingency without assuming engineering or commercial authority.
• Has challenged joint-venture boards and major contractors while protecting masters, dutyholders and technical signatories' accountability.
• Produced comparative readiness evidence that changed sanction timing, asset sequence or contingency funding before mobilisation.

Non-negotiables

• Available for five offshore, vessel or yard reviews and six committee sessions during the eleven-month appointment.
• Brings direct offshore-removal marine evidence; generic project governance or vessel broking alone is insufficient.
• Accepts asset-owner, dutyholder, master, warranty, regulator, technical and waste-classification authority boundaries.
• Will disclose interests involving vessel owners, removal contractors, yards, warranty firms, insurers and venture partners.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a removal campaign you delayed because the offshore-to-yard evidence chain broke.
2. 49 words maximum. How would you expose weather allowance counted in both contractor and portfolio schedules?
3. 49 words maximum. Which reception-yard constraint can invalidate an otherwise credible heavy-lift plan?