Production has started from Scotland’s first oil development from land.
Energy firm Trap Oil said oil from the Lybster project in Caithness started flowing on Wednesday and the first output was due to be delivered by lorry to a refinery in England yesterday.
The oil field is under the sea but the well to reach it was drilled from near the village of Lybster, near Wick, from which it takes its name.
Trap, which owns a 35% stake in the field, operated by Caithness Petroleum, said yesterday the long-reach well was 15-16,000 feet – or three miles – long and ran 5,000ft below the sea. Trap chief executive Mark Groves Gidney said there were delays in drilling the well – carried out by Halliburton from onshore – as a result of having to get through Devonian rock, used in the area as paving slabs.
Work started in 2008 after Caithness Petroleum got approval for the project from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Future development will depend on finding out more about how much oil is in the field.
Mr Groves Gidney said that it was unlikely another well would be drilled, adding: “It is really about finding out how much we can recover from the existing well.”
Past tests have shown flows of up to 2,000 barrels a day from the field.
Tanker lorries will take oil by road to a refinery run by ConocoPhillips at Immingham, near Hull.
Trap bought its share of the field as part of a £30million deal to buy Banchory firm Reach Oil and Gas last year.
Mr Groves Gidney said yesterday the onshore operation, where just a few people work, was hardly noticeable in the Caithness countryside. He added: “It is just some tanks and some pipework; I struggled to find it and I live there. You can hardly see it.”
Premier Oil said yesterday an exploration well on the Stingray North Sea prospect, in which it has a 50% interest, had found no oil and would be plugged and abandoned.
Production has started from Scotland’s first oil development from land.
Energy firm Trap Oil said oil from the Lybster project in Caithness started flowing on Wednesday and the first output was due to be delivered by lorry to a refinery in England yesterday.
The oil field is under the sea but the well to reach it was drilled from near the village of Lybster, near Wick, from which it takes its name.
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