Tulip Oil Netherlands Offshore announces the start-up and commissioning of the Q10 offshore gas development in the Dutch North Sea, only 15 months after taking the Final Investment Decision (FID). This makes it one of the fastest development projects.
The first well Q10A-01 has been put on production and up to four additional wells are being drilled. Production will be slowly ramped up as these wells are put on stream. Gas is transported by the newly-built pipeline to the unmanned P15d platform for processing and export.
Mean resources in Q10 are estimated as 7.9 billion standard cubic meters of gas by operator Tulip Oil.
Geology of Q10
The Q10 gas field was discovered in 1973 by the exploration well Q7-1, which encountered gas in the Rotliegend. Tulip Oil drilled the Q10-6 appraisal/development well in 2015. The gas field is located on a tilted fault block named Zandvoort High, which is bounded by a dip closure in the northwest and southeast directions.
The field consists of three reservoir levels: Triassic Bunter sandstones, Permian Zechstein sandstones and carbonates and Permian Rotliegend Slochteren sandstones. The Zechstein and Rotliegend reservoir are in pressure communication with pressures on the same gas gradient. The Bunter reservoir is not connected and forms a separate accumulation.
Tulip Oil is operator and holds 60% working interest and EBN holds the remaining interest.
