diff --git a/cmd/ipi-deprovision/ipi-deprovision.sh b/cmd/ipi-deprovision/ipi-deprovision.sh
index 6d051f0ace5..51c10f91dd9 100644
--- a/cmd/ipi-deprovision/ipi-deprovision.sh
+++ b/cmd/ipi-deprovision/ipi-deprovision.sh
@@ -1,17 +1,42 @@
-#!/bin/sh
+#!/bin/bash
 
-### expirationDate is always with timezone +00:00, eg, "2019-07-23T22:35+0000"
-MY_DATE=$(TZ=":Africa/Abidjan" date '+%Y-%m-%d')
-declare -a regions=("us-east-1" "us-east-2" "us-west-1")
+set -o errexit
+set -o nounset
+set -o pipefail
+
+### cluster_age_cutoff is going to be used as argument in the aws command below
+### to filter out the expired clusters with the tags of the key expirationDate
+### which is always with timezone +00:00, eg, "2019-07-23T22:35+0000".
+### CLUSTER_TTL controlls the relative time to the running time of this script.
+### eg, export CLUSTER_TTL="22 hours ago"
+echo "Searching for clusters with a TTL of ${CLUSTER_TTL}"
+cluster_age_cutoff="$(TZ=":Africa/Abidjan" date --date="${CLUSTER_TTL}" '+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M+0000')"
+
+echo "cluster_age_cutoff: ${cluster_age_cutoff}"
+
+### eg, export AWS_REGIONS="us-east-1;us-west-1"
+echo "take regions from env. var.: AWS_REGIONS: ${AWS_REGIONS}"
+IFS=';' read -r -a regions <<< "$AWS_REGIONS"
 
 handle_cluster () {
-  local cluster_name;
+  local cluster_name
   cluster_name=$1
-  echo "handling cluster: ${cluster_name} ..."
+  local expirationDateValue
+  expirationDateValue=$2
+  echo "handling cluster: ${cluster_name} with expirationDate: ${expirationDateValue}"
+  ### TODO: will test hiveutil later
+  #./bin/hiveutil aws-tag-deprovision "${cluster_name}=owned"
 }
 
+
+
 for r in "${regions[@]}"
 do
   echo "doing region ${r} ..."
-  aws ec2 describe-vpcs --output json --region "${r}" | jq --arg date "${MY_DATE}" -r -S '.Vpcs[] | select (.Tags[]? | (.Key == "expirationDate" and .Value < $date)) | .Tags[] | select (.Value == "owned") | .Key' | while read line; do handle_cluster ${line}; done
+  json_output=$(aws ec2 describe-vpcs --output json --region "${r}")
+  for cluster in $(echo ${json_output} | jq --arg date "${cluster_age_cutoff}" -r -S '.Vpcs[] | select (.Tags[]? | (.Key == "expirationDate" and .Value < $date)) | .Tags[] | select (.Value == "owned") | .Key')
+  do
+    expirationDateValue=$(echo ${json_output} | jq --arg cl "${cluster}" -r -S '.Vpcs[] | select (.Tags[]? | (.Key == $cl and .Value == "owned")) | .Tags[] | select (.Key == "expirationDate") | .Value')
+    handle_cluster "${cluster}" "${expirationDateValue}"
+  done
 done