Offshore infrastructure decommissioning, just transitions, and the struggle for the right to the sea: Small-scale fishers’ perspectives from coastal Ghana

Abstract

Offshore petroleum infrastructure decommissioning is usually framed as a technical and environmental process requiring technical expertise. Yet, offshore infrastructure decommissioning could have deleterious consequences on adjacent coastal communities and livelihoods. Drawing on qualitative data from 65 respondents from Ghanaian coastal communities of Saltpond and Kormantse, this paper investigates small-scale fishers’ experiences of offshore oil and gas infrastructure decommissioning. The paper frames decommissioning as a critical phase of energy transition and interrogates its outcomes through the dual lenses of just transitions and the “right to the sea.” The findings reveal that decommissioning produces socio-ecological and economic disruptions. These include the creation of offshore safety zones leading to spatial exclusion of fishing activities, the erosion of socio-ecological knowledge systems, material precarity through asset loss, and ecological uncertainty linked to perceptions of pollution. While these processes are officially justified on grounds of safety and environmental protection, they are experienced locally as forms of livelihood dispossession and governance exclusion. The study argues that decommissioning represents an unjust transition, in which the challenges associated with post-extractive restructuring are disproportionately shifted onto vulnerable coastal communities. At the same time, it is a struggle over the right to the sea, as regulatory and security mechanisms reconfigure access to marine space in ways that privilege state and industrial actors over fisherfolk. The paper concludes that achieving socially just and sustainable decommissioning outcomes requires moving beyond technical compliance toward inclusive governance frameworks that recognise local knowledge, ensure equitable access to marine resources, and address the livelihood impacts of transition.