A roster of North Sea players has been brought together to begin pre-front end engineering and design studies (pre-FEED) for the Marigold field, which will be developed via Repsol Sinopec’s Piper Bravo platform.
A joint team comprised of Repsol Sinopec Resources UK (RSRUK), TechnipFMC and Petrofac – dubbed “the Alliance” – announced Tuesday that studies which began in February have now been concluded, confirming Piper Bravo as the host for the development.
The group will now move forward with pre-FEED work.
Malaysia’s Hibiscus Petroleum owns the Marigold cluster – containing the Sunflower, Crown and Kildrummy prospects – and which also neighbours Ithaca Energy’s Yeoman discovery, later renamed Marigold East.
The two have been working together to progress a joint development plan since last year.
Both are now working with the Alliance group, via an integrated project team based at Repsol Sinopec’s Aberdeen office.
The Marigold Cluster is thought to contain 60 million barrels of oil and lies around 155 miles north-east of Aberdeen. Hibiscus has put potentially recoverable resources for Marigold and Sunflower at 43.6 million barrels.
The development concept for Marigold consists of up to nine subsea wells, connected by a 10-miles tie back to the Piper Bravo platform, where gas lift, processing and transportation services will be provided before oil is exported to RSRUK’s Flotta Terminal for tanker offload.
Piper Bravo, installed in 1992, lies 119 miles north-east of Aberdeen.
Peak production from Marigold is expected to be 40,000 barrels of oil per day and 12 million cubic metres of gas per day.
The partners expect that new infrastructure at the field will enable a number of future development opportunities, including Sunflower and Q-block discoveries.
This announcement follows recent news that the Golden Eagle, Piper and Claymore field owners have recently executed new agreements reaffirming their commitment to export produced oil to the Flotta Terminal until the end of field life.
RSRUK said that its Alliance partnership offers owners of oil and gas discoveries near its existing North Sea infrastructure hubs an “integrated and commercially flexible” option for development.
Speaking on behalf of the partnership, RSRUK CEO José Luis Muñoz said: “We are pleased to be working with industry to develop the Marigold field via Repsol Sinopec’s Piper Bravo platform; aligning with MER objectives and facilitating domestic energy supply.
“As an industry we must get better at recognising the benefits of collaboration and utilising existing North Sea infrastructure to maximise recovery from the basin, along with minimising carbon emissions and facilitating the transition to a lower carbon economy. Our alliance and the progression of this project support the continued success of the industry for many years to come.”