New ideas are needed if North Sea reserves are to be exploited instead of being stranded for good, business leaders were told yesterday.
The comment, made at an Aberdeen business breakfast, came after industry research revealed projects were being blocked because of break-downs in negotiations to hook new fields into existing platforms.
Some 16% of negotiations by firms wanting to tie-in an oil or gas field to a so-called “host platform” had been blocked for technical or commercial reasons, the Oil and Gas UK event at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre was told.
The research was carried out as part of a UK Government industry project led by Pilot, under the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which is looking into how issues over access to infrastructure such as platforms and pipelines can be addressed.
Oonagh Werngren, business manager at GDF Suez, said a big issue was that not enough exploration was being carried out fast enough to make sure new fields could be tied into platforms before they were decommissioned by their operators. She added that pipeline capacity was not an issue, with just 10% of northern North Sea capacity being used.
Most discoveries in the northern sector are within 40 miles of a platform but the main hubs new fields could tie into are all due to shut down by 2036.
This will strand about half of the estimated 1.4billion barrels in the area if it is not developed in time.
Mrs Werngren said: “We have got to look at alternative models for the future. We have to look at a different way of getting the resources out. We made need a different type of person in the industry or more commercial people because there is an issue here.”
Ideas suggested at the event included getting companies to join together and bring together clusters of smaller discoveries subsea so they can be tied back to a platform with just one pipeline. Focusing more on cost sharing instead of tariffs, tax incentives and increased transparency was also recommended.
The Pilot access to infrastructure group is due to present its findings to the industry later this year before a full report is published.
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