Valaris jackup to drill North Sea Seagull wells

Sept. 30, 2019
Neptune Energy and its joint venture partners BP and JAPEX have contracted Valaris plc’s jackup VALARIS JU-248 (Rowan Gorilla VI) to drill four firm wells for the Seagull oil project in the UK central North Sea.

Offshore staff

LONDON – Neptune Energy and its joint venture partners BP and JAPEX have contracted Valaris plc’s jackup VALARIS JU-248 (Rowan Gorilla VI) to drill four firm wells for the Seagull oil project in the UK central North Sea.

The 18-month drilling campaign is scheduled to start in 3Q 2020.

Seagull is a high-pressure/high-temperature development located on UK license P1622 block 22/29C, 17 km (11 mi) south of the BP-operated ETAP central processing facility (CPF). Seagull will be tied back to the ETAP CPF partially using existing subsea infrastructure which would otherwise have been decommissioned.

Gas from the development will come onshore at the CATS processing terminal at Teesside, while oil will come onshore through the Forties Pipeline System to the Kinneil Terminal, Grangemouth.

The development is expected to initially produce around 50,000 boe/d (80% oil) across its 10-year design life. Proved plus probable gross reserves are estimated at 50 MMboe.

The field development plan was submitted to and approved by the Oil and Gas Authority in March 2019.

Neptune is the operator of Seagull and has a 35% equity interest. BP has 50% and JAPEX has 15%. Neptune acquired its 35% interest in Seagull from Apache North Sea Ltd. in 2018.

Neptune Energy’s UK Managing Director, Pete Jones, said: “Seagull is a very positive example of what our industry is working hard to achieve in terms of MER UK; the project partners have embraced a collaborative, commercially-innovative approach and extended the life of operating assets through the use of existing infrastructure in order to maximize recovery of North Sea hydrocarbons.”

09/30/2019