Offshore staff
ABERDEEN/LONDON – More companies have issued details of their awards under the UK’s 30th Offshore Licensing Round, announced yesterday.
Faroe Petroleum gained 100% of block 30/114b, at the southeast end of the prolific Josephine Ridge area, south of the producing Blane field (Faroe 44.5%) and adjacent to the producing Flyndre/Cawdor fields operated by Total.
The main prospect is Edinburgh, a large, tilted Mesozoic fault block covering over 40 sq km (15.4 sq mi), making it one of the largest known undrilled structures in the central North Sea.
Prospective reservoirs include the Triassic Skagerrak formation and the Upper Jurassic Ula age-equivalent (Freshney and Fulmar) reservoir sandstones.
Edinburgh spans multiple licenses in UK and Norwegian waters and is also stratigraphically split across one license.
Commitments comprise a drill-or-drop well, pore pressure analysis, and structural studies.
Zennor Petroleum subsidiaries secured a total of five potential awards. Zennor Pathway’s are in and around the company’s North Sea Finlaggan development project, the blocks including a small extension of the Finlaggan field onto previously unlicensed acreage, and the Leverett discovery, which could at some point be tied back to the Finlaggan infrastructure.
This summer, the semisubmersiblePaul B Loyd Jr is due to start development drilling on Finlaggan.
Zennor North Sea’s non-operated awards are in and around the company’s existing UK central North Sea acreage. They include additions to the company’s blocks in the ETAP area, detailed by BP yesterday; and others in partnership with Cairn Energy subsidiary Nautical Petroleum and Dyas UK, comprising acreage contiguous to the company’s 30%-owned Ekland prospect.
A first well is due to spud on Ekland later this year.
Azinor Catalyst’s two new operated licenses, both in the Outer Moray Firth area offshore northeast Scotland, are 14/20a (split), in partnership with Dyas UK, and 15/17c and 18c, with Ping Petroleum. Both are on a drill-or-drop basis.
Parkmead was provisionally offered nine offshore blocks and part blocks spanning five new licenses, all operated, in three different areas.
Blocks 30/12c, 13c, 17h, and 18c (Parkmead 30%) are in the prolific Central Graben. Four play fairways developed on the acreage include six prospects, with prospectivity mapped at Palaeocene Mey sandstone and Cretaceous chalk level (the productive horizons for the nearby Joanne, Judy, Orion, and Flyndre fields), and in the deeper Jurassic Fulmar play.
The Skerryvore Mey prospect overlies two stacked chalk prospects (Skerryvore Ekofisk and Skerryvore Tor) associated with a Zechstein salt diapir named Skerryvore. These three stacked prospects could potentially deliver 157 MMboe recoverable.
Others include the Palaeocene Mey prospect (Skerryvore West) and the Chalk Skerryvore North prospects. The partners plan to acquire and reprocess 3D seismic and make provisions for drilling a well.
Block 30/19c (Parkmead 30%) to the east contains Ruvaal, a Palaeocene Mey combination structural and stratigraphic trap. Here the program includes a drill-or-drop well.
Block 14/20f (Parkmead 100%) in the Outer Moray Firth basin contains the Lowlander oil discovery, 17 km (10.6 mi) northwest of the Parkmead-operated Perth field at the heart of the company’s Greater Perth Area (GPA) oil hub project.
Lowlander is an Upper Jurassic Piper sandstone discovery, appraised by five wells. It contains 2C resources of 21.4 MMbbl recoverable oil and could be co-developed with the GPA. The block also contains an Upper Jurassic turbidite sandstone discovery, Midlander, northeast of Lowlander: commitments here are obtaining 3D seismic and a drill-or-drop well.
Parkmead’s new west of Shetland license covers block 205/12 (100%) in the Faroe-Shetland basin and west of the company’s operated block 205/13, containing the Sanda prospect. Davaar, a 204-MMbbl recoverable prospect on the new block, is a combination structural and stratigraphic trap in the Vaila formation, the main play fairway on the acreage and forming the reservoir in BP’s adjacent Foinaven, Schiehallion and Loyal oil fields and Total’s Laggan and Tormore gas fields.
In this case, Parkmead will reprocess existing legacy seismic with a new 3D seismic shoot, and contingent on the results, take a drill-or0drop well decision.
In the southern North Sea, the new license is over blocks 47/10d and 48/6d (Parkmead 75% and operator) which contain the Blackadder prospect and the Teviot gas discovery.
The Permian Rotliegendes sandstone is the primary play fairway, responsible for nearby gas discoveries such as West Sole, Hyde, and Amethyst. The award terms include a drill-or-drop work well: Parkmead’s co-venturer is Cluff Natural Resources.
05/24/2018
