French independent Perenco has outlined plans to increase production through its Tyne platform about 170km east-north-east of the Yorkshire coast by drilling a sidetrack from its Tyne T5 well.
According to an environmental statement by RPS Energy, it would be drilled by the ENSCO 80 jack-up drilling rig, with the preliminary spud date programmed for May this year. First gas was anticipated in July.
Decommissioning for Trent, which processes gas from Tyne and others, had been forecast as 2005 by the previous operator.
The RPS report says the increase in production from the Tyne platform is expected to extend the overall field life from its current 2016 estimate by around three years – to 2019.
The drilling of the Tyne sidetrack, funded by a £21million farm-in from Iona Energy for 20% equity, will result in an addition of 587,000 cu m (20.7million cu ft) per day going through the nearby Trent platform during peak production in 2013, an incremental increase of 62%, it says. A field development plan is yet to be submitted.
Iona also had an option to increase its working interest in Trent and Tyne by a further 17.5% (37.5% in total), by committing to fund the drilling of a second well at a cost of about £24.6million in an area known as Tyne North West, with Perenco as operator.
The Trent platform receives gas from its own Trent wells, from Tyne and from two third party installations (Kilmar and Garrow, collectively referred to as the Tors fields).
o Perenco is buying BP’s Southern North Sea assets – put on the market more than a year ago – for $400million.
This includes the West Sole Alpha, Ravenspurn North and Cleeton platforms, a number of normally unmanned installations and the Dimlington Platform,
Current net BP production from the southern gas assets is about 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boepd).
ConocoPhillips, which had put some of its southern North Sea assets up for sale is understood to have withdrawn these from the market.