RD&I Portfolio for the Sustainable Decommissioning of Offshore O&G Structures in Brazil

Abstract The decommissioning of offshore O&G structures in Brazil is substantial and an ongoing challenge. Sustainability of such operations can be increased by robust business models that provide optimized or completely new processes for dismantling platforms and recycling materials and equipment under the logic of the circular economy and social justice. Brazilian National Petroleum Company (BNPC) is putting forward a technological solution designed to address these challenges between 2024 and 2034, which strategies, goals and scenario will be presented in this paper. We analyze how the innovation ecosystem can promote the Brazilian process of implementing a circular economy in the context of the decommissioning of O&G platforms from the identification of sustainable value opportunities and for the capture of this value. For this we use 4EM to understand how an orchestrating company such as BNPC plans the development of a sustainable decommissioning in Brazil, the Sustainable Value Analysis Tool to build information on sustainable value and the Pie Ecosystem Model to understand how an innovation ecosystem can act to capture the desired sustainable value organizing a new circular business model. Finally, we discuss the insufficiency of a technological innovation system (TIS) to promote sustainable transition and the need for a future study that analyzes, based on a specific framework, the current TIS and an understanding of the longitudinal events related to the Brazilian naval industry and how the activity of dismantling and recycling of platforms and vessels represents a recent element of a transition that has been occurring within this industry.