As we launch the 29th Offshore Licensing Round today, it also marks the launch of the ‘Innovate Licence’ which has been developed by the MERUK exploration board working in collaboration with the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and an industry task group represented by a range of companies
The Innovate Licence, which has a maximum period of nine years, offers a more flexible and pragmatic approach to licensing with potentially three sub-phases of activity and work commitments.
OGA will work closely with license holders to ensure appropriate work programmes are managed and delivered during each phase.
The 29th Round is focused on under-explored frontier areas where we believe significant prospectivity still remains, challenging perceptions of the UKCS as a mature basin.
The 30th round in 2017 will focus on near-field infrastructure-led exploration (ILX) in more mature areas before returning to more frontier exploration for the 31st round in 2018, taking advantage of the seismic data being acquired during this summer’s UK Government funded seismic round of the East Shetland Platform and South West Britain coupled with reprocessed seismic data.
Gunther Newcombe is the director of exploration & production for the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA)