Why Decommissioning Matters for Australia

Australia faces a massive clean-up: over 1,000 offshore wells, 60 platforms, and thousands of kilometres of pipelines need to be removed in coming decades. The cost of this work is more than $60 billion – and half of it is due within the next decade.

This will be the cornerstone for expanding existing maritime operations, with opportunities flowing through the entire steel recycling supply chain that will help revitalise our regions.

By law, oil and gas companies must fully remove disused infrastructure. But industry continues to push for cheap options like dumping equipment at sea or exporting recovered material overseas.

The MUA is campaigning to ensure this work is carried out properly: creating secure union jobs, protecting our marine environment, and delivering secure streams of work for offshore workers.

Artificial Reefs Must Not Become a Cover for Sea Dumping

Artificial reefs are legitimate scientific projects when they are done properly. They are carefully designed, assessed and built to support marine life.

Oil and gas companies are leaving old infrastructure sitting on the seafloor and creatively calling it a “reef”.

If you stand in the ocean for long enough, something will grow on you... An ageing platform, pipeline or wellhead is not suddenly an environmental project because it is no longer in use.

A lot of this infrastructure contains plastics, heavy metals, toxic coatings, asbestos, mercury and radioactive material built up over decades offshore. Leaving it behind is not the same thing as building a proper artificial reef.

Let’s be honest - “rigs-to-reefs” is about reducing costs and avoiding full clean-up obligations.

Australia’s laws are built around a simple principle: when companies finish making money offshore, they clean up after themselves. Remove the infrastructure. Remediate the seabed. Don’t leave the problem behind for future generations.

Genuine artificial reefs are:

• Purpose-built,
• Backed by independent science,
• Properly regulated,
• Fully transparent,
• and supported by the community

Transparency is key. Right now, if members of the public want to understand what materials are in Chevron's 'artificial reefs' off Thevenard Island, WA, they have to follow complicated FOI processes. Communities should not have to fight through government paperwork to know what has been dumped in their waters.

Information about contaminants, materials, environmental risks and monitoring must be open and easy to access.

For workers, this matters too. Full removal and onshore dismantling means quality Australian jobs, offshore crews, towage, ports, transport, recycling, steel processing and manufacturing.

Sea dumping leaves both the waste and the jobs offshore.

The MUA supports doing decommissioning properly: get the infrastructure out, recycle what can be reused, protect the marine environment, and keep the work here in Australia.

Future Jobs Now – Members Leading the Transition

The MUA has established a ‘Future Jobs Now’ committees in Victoria and soon to be Western Australia. These committees are bringing together rank-and-file members to drive grassroots organising around offshore decommissioning and the wider energy transition.

Through these committees, members:

• Develop campaign materials and community engagement (posters, stalls, forums).
• Push for strong decommissioning standards in government consultations.
• Build solidarity with environmental allies and local communities.
• Train a new generation of activists to take leadership in offshore, ports, and emerging industries.

The committees are already influencing debates in their states, ensuring decommissioning stays on the political agenda alongside offshore wind. This is the model of worker-led transition: members organising today to secure tomorrow’s jobs.

Government Engagement

The MUA has established itself as a leading voice for workers in decommissioning policy:

• Submissions to the Decommissioning Roadmap and the Offshore Decommissioning Directorate
• Direct engagement with Ministers and departmental staff
• Advocating legislative reforms that provide workers and industry a constant pipeline of work

We are both assisting the government and holding to account so decommissioning delivers jobs not just corporate shortcuts.

Click on any of the submissions and reports below to find out more information regarding the work we are doing in the decommissioning area in conjunction with both State and Federal Government

Key Facts

• The MUA is pushing for the full decommissioning of offshore oil and gas rigs - no sea dumping, no artificial reefs, no exporting problems overseas
• Decommissioning is an industry in itself, and will create jobs for skilled, unionised Australian crews on ships, rigs, in ports, and recycling yards
• As part of the campaign, the MUA is advocating to make common workplace safety laws uniform offshore
• By following a full decommissioning plan, it is projected that we could recycle 3.7 million tonnes of offshore steel for low-emissions “green steel”.
• Ongoing monitoring of the proposed sites will secure a regime for plugged wells and long-term field stewardship