The start of a seven-year drilling campaign on the Loyal field west of Shetland is an “exciting and important milestone” for BP’s operations in the UK North Sea, the oil giant said today.
Newly built semi-submersible Deepsea Aberdeen is contracted to drill wells across the Schiehallion and Loyal fields, as part of the Quad204 redevelopment.
It will initially drill two producer wells and one injector well on Loyal, before moving onto Schiehallion to continue drilling activities.
A total of five wells are planned to be drilled in advance of first oil from the new Glen Lyon floating, production, storage and offload (FPSO) vessel at the end of 2016.
Schiehallion and Loyal, located about 110 miles west of the Shetland, have already produced hundreds of millions of barrels of oil since start-up in 1998.
BP and its partners announced their intention to go ahead with £3billion plans for redeveloping the fields, extending production to 2035 and possibly beyond, nearly four years ago.
Quad204 is targeting an estimated 450million barrels of oil.
Trevor Garlick, regional president for BP’s North Sea business said yesterday the start of drilling on Loyal “marks an exciting and important milestone for both the Quad 204 project and our wider North Sea business.”
He added: “The drilling campaign not only demonstrates our commitment to the region in what is a challenging time but will also help maximise production from Schiehallion and Loyal, contributing to the long-term competitiveness of BP’s North Sea business.”
Deepsea Aberdeen is a £775million, sixth generation dual derrick rig built in South Korea – by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering – for Norwegian firm Odfjell Drilling.
It is specially designed to operate in harsh environments, carrying out ultra-deepwater drilling in depths up to 10,000 feet.
Odfjell Drilling chief executive Simen Lieungh said: “The start of drilling operations on Deepsea Aberdeen marks another step in the development of Odfjell Drilling’s activities in the UK and harsh environment offshore regions.
“The rig design is based on our more than 40 years’ experience of drilling in the North Sea. Our offshore crew and our onshore organisation in Scotland are looking forward to working collaboratively with BP over the next seven years on the Quad 204 development.”
South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a contract worth about £780million at current exchange rates to build the Glen Lyon FPSO for Quad 204 in February 2011.
It is due to arrive in the North Sea in 2016 and will be able to process and export up to 130,000 barrels of oil a day and store up to 1 million barrels.
Glen Lyon replaces the Schiehallion FPSO, which started producing oil in 1998 and continued doing so for 15 years until operations were suspended for Quad204 subsea work.
BP is in the middle of a five year, £7billion investment programme in UK waters, including major projects in the central North Sea and Shetland area, and is also investing in the reliability and integrity of its mature assets through an extensive renewal programme.
The company recently announced first oil from its new Kinnoull field, tied back to the Andrew platform, in the central North Sea, while Quad204 and another major project – Clair Ridge – are expected to bring more new oil into production.
BP as operator and Shell each have a 50% stake in the Loyal field. Schiehallion field ownership interest is split between BP as operator with 33.35%, OMV (11.76%) and Shell (54.89%).
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