Today – on the eve of Offshore Europe 2009 – Shell’s nerve centre for UK offshore operations celebrates its 30th anniversary.
The centre, known as the UKDCC (UK Dispatching and Co-ordination Centre), is at the heart of Shell’s office complex on the outskirts of Aberdeen. It is equipped with the kind of sophisticated technology needed to manage and support the operations which maintain the flow of oil&gas with optimum safety through one of the world’s most challenging offshore systems.
The UKDCC grew out of the Aberdeen Operations Co-ordination Centre (AOCC), which was set up by the Shell and Esso North Sea partnership to operate the Brent System, a pipeline network delivering oil from various platforms via the Cormorant Alpha platform to the Sullom Voe terminal on Shetland on behalf of the Brent system operators.
Today’s UKDCC is regarded as unique, both in terms of the scale of the operations with which it is concerned and because it combines responsibilities associated with these operations with a front-line role in co-ordinating emergency response.
In addition to watching over the UKCS operations of 36 pipelines, 52 offshore platforms and eight onshore gas plants – involving 16 different operators, 18 shippers and more than 30 different contract agreements – the UKDCC is the first point of contact for emergency response when an incident occurs related to Shell-operated platforms, gas plants or pipelines.
The centre now deals with average daily gas volumes of 70million cu m; average daily oil volumes of 9billion cu m, and an average daily natural gas liquids throughput of 10,000 tonnes.
Rob Whelan, head of the UKDCC for the past four years, picks up the story: “During the 1980s, the North Sea entered a busy phase of expansion, with many new fields coming onstream. The emerging gas market in the UK was the catalyst for an extensive new series of gas pipelines to be built in the North Sea – the FLAGS pipeline (Far North Liquids and Associated Gas) and Fulmar Gas pipeline (FGL) making landfall at a new gas terminal built at St Fergus, near Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.
“At this point, the then-AOCC added the new dimension of dispatching to the portfolio. This required the setting up of daily gas nominations and compliance with National Grid Gas system entry specifications.
“This newly acquired expertise attracted business from BP, who built the Northern Leg pipeline connecting into FLAGS, leading to a commercial agreement being set up for the AOCC to operate and dispatch on their behalf.
“New markets were also appearing for other hydrocarbon products (butane, propane, condensate and ethane in particular) and the Shell and Exxon gas plants (Fife Natural Gas Liquids and Fife Ethylene Plant) at Mossmorran, near Cowdenbeath, Fife, were built to extract these products from gas delivered via a pipeline between St Fergus and Mossmorran.
“A fully integrated pipeline system now exists called SEGAL (Shell-Esso Gas and Liquids pipeline). This development required the introduction of sophisticated telemetry and communication systems in the AOCC to ensure robust operating procedures.”
The role of the AOCC at this point was to ensure that all contractual deliveries to shippers were met, operating conditions offshore and onshore optimised to extract maximum value, and that offshore platforms complied with pipeline entry specifications.
The complexity of the system also required the management of pipeline inventories, with occasional application of restriction procedures offshore.
To coincide with the reorganisation of Shell’s European operations, the AOCC was renamed the UKDCC and, in 2004, the dispatching role for the Southern North Sea gas fields at Bacton, Norfolk, was transferred to Aberdeen. This brought a very different business focus, necessitating a growth in staff and new skills.
Although Norwegian gas had been flowing to the UK in small quantities, it was in 2007 that a major new business arrived when the Tampen Link was connected to SEGAL, providing direct entry into the FLAGS pipeline. Today, this provides access for nine different fields, including Statfjord, Gullfax and Snorre.
A strategically important business role and relationship has since been established with GASSCo (the Norwegian gas transporter), opening the door for potential new business to the UK from the Norwegian sector. Active portfolio management over the last few years has seen significant transfer of assets to new operators and interfaces for the centre.
Today, the UKDCC, which Whelan and his colleagues operate 24/7, has a pivotal role in the energy sector, with additional responsibility as Terminal Group Leader for all gas plants at St Fergus and Bacton, involving direct liaison with the Department of Energy and Climate Change and National Grid Gas.
The UKDCC is manned by an eagle-eyed team of 18 who work round the clock in 12-hour shifts to keep watch on the vital pipeline network and carry out the many varied associated duties. The tight-knit team operates in five shifts, each made up of a supervisor, Northern North Sea operator and Southern North Sea operator.
The staff are drawn from a variety of backgrounds, including IT, logistics, tanker scheduling and hydrocarbon accounting, but the majority are former offshore control-room operators.
As the UK offshore industry matures and the emphasis transfers from equity production to third-party opportunity business, the UKDCC will continue its critical role of managing and monitoring the safe passage of oil&gas through the complex spider’s web of pipelines under the North Sea.
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