Case Study: California Natural Resources Agency achieves bipartisan consensus and $500M+ cost savings in offshore platform decommissioning with Lumina Decision Systems’ Analytica PLATFORM

From Controversy to Consensus California's Offshore Oil Platforms

The California Natural Resources Agency faced a contentious decision about how to decommission 27 aging offshore oil platforms: original leases required complete removal, but the structures had become valuable marine habitat and removal would cost over $1 billion and harm air, water, and benthic resources. Lumina Decision Systems was engaged (using its Analytica modeling environment) to help reconcile the concerns of environmental groups, oil companies, fishermen, divers, and multiple state and federal agencies.

Lumina Decision Systems built the PLATFORM multi-attribute decision model in Analytica, using Monte Carlo simulation and SMARTS weighting to quantify costs, ecological impacts, and stakeholder preferences. The analysis showed partial removal (“rigs to reefs”)—cutting platforms at about 85 feet and sharing potential savings—reduced both costs and environmental harm, with potential savings of over $500 million; that approach gained near-unanimous stakeholder support, helped secure passage of AB 2503 (signed by the Governor), and earned the project the Decision Analysis Practice Award.

California Natural Resources Agency

Brock Bernstein

Project Leader