Offshore staff
LONDON -- Premier Oil says the partners in the Scott field in the UK North Sea are progressing development of various discoveries using spare capacity on the Scott platform.
Near the top of the list is Bugle, discovered in 1997 and appraised by Scott’s operator Nexen in 2007. Bugle has been interpreted as stopping against a fault in the north, but newly re-processed 3D seismic suggests that some of the reservoir sands are not faulted, and continue northwards.
Premier says a well will be drilled to test this northern extension early in 2010. Confirmation of the trend should hasten development of Bugle.
Since acquiring Oilexco North Sea’s UK interests, Premier is now pursuing further UKCS developments as an operator. One of these is Oilexco’s Huntington discovery, where unitization negotiations and development concept selection should be completed by year-end. Premier expects to hold the dominant equity position by that point.
Following analysis of operations at the Balmoral field, Premier has decided to accelerate renewal of some of the platform’s risers into 2009, reducing shutdown requirements in 2010. Work to increase the capacity of the gas-lift and water-handling systems should be concluded shortly.
Another project close to completion involves optimizing performance of the subsea multiphase pump for the Brenda and Nicol satellites. A second well at Nicol came on stream in June, but production from this field has been constrained by offtake system bottlenecks. As a consequence, further infill drilling planned on Brenda has been deferred until 2010.
08/28/2009
