Offshore staff
LONDON – Britain’s regulator has approved EnQuest’s application for a cessation of production (CoP) for the Heather field in the UK northern North Sea.
Preparations can now start for decommissioning: the Heather production platform remains shutdown and is depressurized. Well abandonment should resume in 2021.
In the same region, EnQuest also lodged a CoP request for the Thistle/Deveron fields. During July, redundant crude oil storage tanks were removed from the Thistle platform and the facility will probably remain unmanned for the remainder of 2020, with a well abandonment program again targeted for next year.
At the Dons fields, the shutdown at Thistle has impacted gas supply for gas-lift, resulting in lower production. EnQuest and its partners are working with the regulator on approvals for a CoP, likely to take place in 2Q 2021.
In the central UK sector, CoP occurred at the Alma/Galia fields on June 30. The FPSO EnQuest Producer will shortly move off station and sail to the oil terminal jetty at Nigg in northeast Scotland, with the company investigating options regarding its future.
As a result of these developments, the company has re-organized its UK North Sea business into three directorates, Upstream, Midstream and Decommissioning, all reporting to Bob Davenport, managing director – North Sea.
Among the company’s fields with a longer-term future, Magnus in the East Shetland basin produced on average 18,806 boe/d during the first half of the year, 5.8% more than in the corresponding period in 2019.
This was due in part to high water injection and two new wells coming onstream in March, countering gas compressor performance issues early in 2020.
At Kraken, the company completed drilling at the Worcester accumulation, with the new producer-injector pair coming online late in 2Q.
09/03/2020
