Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK – bp’s Vorlich gas/condensate development has come onstream via a 10-km (6.2-mi) subsea tieback to the FPF-1 floating production semisubmersible in the UK central North Sea.
The platform hosts all production from the Greater Stella Area (GSA) fields. Operator Ithaca Energy installed the subsea infrastructure and managed modifications on the FPF-1 to receive and process Vorlich’s fluids.
Although bp operated the development phase, and drilling of the two wells. Ithaca has now become operator: start-up, originally scheduled for mid-2020, was delayed due to COVID-19-related restrictions.
Ithaca has also sanctioned the Abigail (ex-Hurricane) tieback, but will assess timing for the development once it has established its full work programs and budgets for 2021 and beyond.
As for other subsequent GSA satellite projects (Austen and Courageous) the company continues to progress subsurface and engineering studies.
In the Outer Moray Firth, Ithaca took on operatorship of the Captain heavy oil field after acquiring Chevron’s UK North Sea interests.
The current focus is on extending the Stage I polymer EOR program to a second stage of activities, involving drilling of up to four further producer and six injector wells.
The intention is to optimize oil recovery from the area of the Upper Captain Sands reservoir that is produced using subsea wells. In addition, the program calls for installation of 6-km (3.7-mi) subsea pipelines and umbilicals to the two subsea areas to provide polymer injection capacity, and to install additional polymer storage tanks and pumps on the Captain platform and FPSO.
Ithaca and its partners aim to sanction the development before year-end. Its long-term goal is to maximize oil recovery from the field into the 2030s.
In the Inner Moray Firth, the jackup Valaris 101 completed a three-well abandonment campaign in June on Ithaca’s Jacky field which had ceased production in 2014.
Main decommissioning remaining involves removal and recycling of the suction-piled, monopole unmanned platform, now scheduled for 2021.
Also, in June approval came through from the UK’s Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning for the Anglia field in the UK southern North Sea (Ithaca 30%).
The normally unmanned platform and various platform and subsea wells will probably be removed in the mid-2020s.
11/30/2020
