The North Sea Brent province is – or better, was – awash with oil, but gas has always been a critical fuel too because of its use to power the production platforms.
Now that more and more Northern North Sea facilities are ceasing production, the risk increases that some fields have to shut in prematurely because they depend on fuel gas from soon to be decommissioned assets.
An example of this could be Dana’s UK Western Isles development, which depends on gas being supplied from the Tern field operated by TAQA a little further to the east. TAQA submitted their topsides decommissioning programme to the authorities in 2020, which includes a schedule of the various activities involved.
Even though the programme may have had some delay due to the pandemic, with the anticipated removal of Tern’s topsides potentially starting in 2024 the deadline for gas production from the field is rapidly approaching.
Against this backdrop, Dana is currently drilling another development well on the Barra accumulation, one of the two Western Isles fields that were taken into production in 2017. The $2 billion project, which included the construction of a brand new FPSO, experienced a delay of around two years.
Where are the hot plays across the NCS? Attend our NCS Exploration – Recent Discoveries Conference 8 & 9 June in Oslo and learn about the following exciting wells and fields from the operators themselves:
Toppand, Apodida, Røver Nord, Dugong Tail, Segment D, Hamlet, Talisker East, Rolvsnes, King/Prince, Warka, Wisting, Salina, Bask, Rødhette, Isflak, Snøfonn Nord, Skavl, Mugnetind, Lyderhorn, Gomez, Tyrihans Ile North, Bergknapp & Fenja.
In addition, there will be talks about frontier exploration in the Norwegian Sea, a debate on source rocks and implications on hydrocarbon generation and much more.
According to the Dana website, the Harris and Barra fields together were estimated to contain up to 45 MMboe of recoverable reserves at the start of production. When looking at the NSTA’s UKCS fields production dashboard, 32.8 MMboe was produced so far, which means that at the latest production rates (7,241 Bo/d, January 2022) the field will need around 4.5 years of time to produce the estimated recoverable volume.
The 4.5 years obviously is a positive estimate, given that production rates will further decline from the latest recorded levels. It is most likely for that reason that Dana is drilling the 210/24a-B11 development well in order to offset the natural decline in production from Western Isles.
Will Dana be able to produce the estimated reserves from Western Isles? Time will tell, but surely the faster the better.
HENK KOMBRINK
