Upcoming Events

The next quartely  RPC meeting will be held on October 2nd – contact Ram Seetharam to receive an invite to the meeting.

Recent Events

• The ROICE team hosted the RPC Meeting on June 26, reviewing updates on progress across all workstreams: OCS, Wind Power, and Data Centers.
• Strandblue has joined the RPC, supporting the new initiative looking into the feasibility of offshore data centers as a repurposing method.

Program Headlines 

• The ROICE team is honored to be a member of the team that recently won a $750K award for the TIDES project (Training Initiative for Decommissioning and Energy Skills) from NASEM under the Workforce Development for the Energy Transition program.  We look forward to developing the next generation of skilled workers to carry out timely and safe decommissioning operations in the Gulf of America.
• We are excited to announce that our paper “Methodology to compare levelized cost drivers for repurposing global offshore infrastructure for clean energy - Offshore California vs. Gulf of Mexico case study” has been accepted for publication in the journal Renewable Energy. The ROICE team also has a paper on offshore CO2 sequestration submitted to Energy and Fuels journal, as well as tow abstracts submitted to the 2027 Offshore Technology Conference. 
• The ROICE team is honored to be a member of the winning team led by Gulf Offshore Research Institute, selected as one of 10 finalists for a $20MM project funding by the Gulf Futures Challenge, for the project titles “Repurposing Petroleum Infrastructure for Sustainable Energy, Food, and Critical Minerals”.

Latest Insights

Origin Story

ROICE began as a thought experiment that evolved into one of the many efforts that makes UH Energy a leader in sustainability.  Researchers at the University of Houston have been thinking about ways to repurpose offshore oil & gas infrastructure since the concept of sustainability first started gaining momentum in the energy industry. There are thousands of inactive wells, pipelines and platforms in the Gulf that have reached the end of their lifecycle in the oil & gas sector. Instead of dismantling them, could they be repurposed to expand the energy ecosystem and make it more efficient? What if, researchers asked, this offshore infrastructure could serve a foundation for new and existing enterprises to build on?  

Early studies suggested that, yes, repurposing projects could transform the trajectory of industries and coastal communities that would suffer in the absence of active offshore energy generation. Their assessments attracted interest and investment from government officials and energy leaders, and in 2022, the Repurposing Offshore Infrastructure for Continued  Energy (ROICE) Project — was established to continue exploring new commercial applications for end-of-life offshore infrastructure amidst their trove of potential.  

ROICE Mission

ROICE has since grown into an incubation space for industry and academia to discover and develop actionable frameworks for repurposing projects that could add new environmental and economic value to offshore assets. Though operators are normally obligated to engage in a lengthy, expensive process of dismantling inactive offshore structures — which can disturb marine life and drain the area’s economic viability — ROICE believes that repurposing can bring significant workforce and revenue benefits to coastal communities, while lowering the carbon footprint in their next phase of life. For example, the platforms could become the basis for actualizing new  wind-to-hydrogen, aqua-culture or critical minerals mining projects. Perhaps they could serve as infrastructure for offshore data centers, or to facilitate the expansion of the sport fishing industry.  

Phase 1 - Screening Studies (Complete)

• Levelized Cost (LC) Model and LC Heat Maps developed for Wind and Hydrogen ROICE projects in the GOM 
• Chartered Regulatory and Technical workgroups to develop project implementation framework

Phase 2 - Feasibility Studies (Complete)

• Screen offshore GOM assets for ROICE implementation potential; refine ROICE designs 
• Understand path to profitability of ROICE projects
• Develop ROICE Project Implementation Framework

Phase 3 - Workflow Refinement (nearing completion) 

• Develop ROICE Economic Model (REM) and Placement Workflows  
• Develop toolkit for wind farm support and hydrogen production as ROICE options 
• Carry out case studies on typical Gulf assets and refine workflows 
• Identify Top 50 Assets for Wind Farm Support Projects
• Expand ROICE Project Implementation Framework

Phase 4 – Ongoing 

• Expand ROICE Workflow to Offshore CO2 Sequestration (OCS) & Data Centers  
• Identify Top 50 Assets for OCS
• Solicit partners (asset owners, funding agencies, OEM and EPC companies) and develop scope and project execution plan for ROICE Pilot

 

 

Funding Statement

This project was paid for [in part] with federal funding from the Department of the Treasury through the State of Texas under the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act of 2012 (RESTORE Act). The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the State of Texas or the Department of the Treasury.

This project was paid for (in part) by the Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory through GRANT13952882 for the project titled “A Comprehensive Roadmap for ROICE (Repurposing Offshore Infrastructure for Clean Energy) Projects in the Gulf of Mexico”.