Livingston-based Cesscon Decom, one of Scotland’s leading oil and gas decommissioning companies, has told staff it is threatened with closure amid a severe industry slowdown, sparking fears over the future of around 20 skilled jobs.
Director Lee Hanlon notified employees of the unfolding crisis in an internal email. Hanlon explained: “The firm had received a petition to liquidate the business,” citing a shortage of decommissioning projects and postponed contracts, which put the company “in this very difficult position which has now been taken out of our hands.”
According to Andrew Bell, Scotland organiser for the GMB trade union, the company’s staff had not received pay since May due to the company’s frozen bank account. Bell said the employees “were told in an email from director Lee Hanlon that the firm had received a petition to liquidate the business.”
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The closure threat comes despite Scotland’s high-profile transition away from fossil fuels and mounting warnings from regulators about a backlog of North Sea wells requiring safe decommissioning. Yet, as Hanlon has previously warned, the industry faces volatile scheduling for decommissioning, and market instability means crucial work is often delayed or redirected, undermining companies like Cesscon Decom.
This potential shutdown is the latest sign of distress in a sector adjusting to regulatory uncertainty and volatile oil prices. Many in the industry and government worry these disruptions could lead to a loss of domestic supply chain capability just as decommissioning activity is projected to intensify over the coming decade.
The fate of Cesscon Decom reflects wider uncertainties in Scotland’s energy sector, where the decline of historic industries is not always being matched by the speed of new opportunities arising from renewables and energy transition.
