Paper Title
Decommissioning Offshore Platforms with a Circular Economy in Mind

Abstract
Decommissioning offshore oil and gas platforms is an inevitable process that many companies will have to carry out in the coming years or decades because their service life is approaching the end. Decommissioning the platform is an expensive process and amounts to billions of dollars a year, so oil companies are forced to find and implement the most technically, economically, and environmentally advantageous decommissioning process. The decommissioning process itself depends on several parameters including platform characteristics (e.g., size, weight, and structural integrity), water depth, legislation (global, regional, and national) and environmental protection. The principles of circular economy should be incorporated into the decommissioning process and as much material as possible should be reused instead of disposing of it in the environment. The paper elaborates offshore platform removal possibilities, by analysing their pros and cons. It considers application of the circular economy principles in the late stages of a platform’s lifetime. In addition, the issue of decommissioning of offshore platforms in the Adriatic Sea, Croatia, is presented. Keywords - Decommissioning, Offshore Platforms, Circular Economy, Environmental Impacts, Adriatic Sea