Offshore staff
LONDON — The UK’s North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) has relaunched its digital wells database, first opened in 2022.
Last year the Wells Operations Notifications System (WONS) accommodated more than 1,100 applications related to exploration, production, development and decommissioning.
It allows companies to submit online applications and notifications for planned well activity, which the NSTA then considers before issuing consent.
WONS has now been updated to assist emerging requirements to drill a wellbore for a carbon storage license. The NSTA estimates that there are more than 12,500 wellbores in the UK North Sea, with about 5,500 wells plugged and abandoned.
There are increasing needs to consider reuse or repurposing wells as part of the decommissioning process, and the system changes should allow the NSTA to collate more accurate information on final well abandonment for subsequent scrutiny, particularly for a new role in subsurface carbon storage.
And users should be able to record more detailed information on the identity and role of companies responsible for the wellbore and the associated data, supporting compliance.
There have been issues in the past with wellbores that overlap the median line with Norwegian or Dutch waters, but these too have been addressed.
In late June, the NSTA offered the Synergia Energy/Wintershall Dea partnership a carbon storage license, the 21st offer issued under the UK’s first carbon storage licensing round, which closed last September.
07.07.2023
