The Shell Pierce project in the UK North Sea is due to restart production later in March after a six-month outage.
Shell (LON: SHEL) ceased production at Pierce in August, having started-up the Central North Sea redevelopment six months earlier in February 2023.
Aurelia Energy, a holding company of Bluewater Group which owns the FPSO, said Pierce ceased production “due to issues with its mooring lines connections to the buoy”.
In mid-February, one of these was successfully repaired, and restart of production is now expected at the “end of March” subject to approvals.
Aurelia said one more mooring line, not critical to the integrity of the mooring system, is expected to be fixed later this year.
A Shell spokesperson said: “The work is nearing completion with production expected to resume in the near future.”
Shell Pierce
Shell started up the gas redevelopment last year after several months of delay, having first been slated for the second quarter of 2022.
The Haewene Brim FPSO spent time at Aibel’s Haugesund yard in Norway for refurbishment before being delivered to Pierce, around 165 miles east of Aberdeen.
Historically an oil producing field, first brought online in 1999, the redevelopment of Pierce allows for associated gas to be exported via a new pipeline to the St Fergus terminal in Aberdeenshire.
Shell owns 92.52% of Pierce, with the remaining 7.48% held by Ithaca Energy.
A final investment decision (FID) was taken on the redevelopment project in 2019, with estimates it would increase production to 30,000 barrels per day.