BP and Shell get green light for North Sea joint venture, drilling for 20m barrels of oil
BP and Shell received approval for their 50-50 joint Shetland venture today, which they predict could produce 20m barrels of oil.
The Alligin oil field in the North Sea should produce 12,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak once it comes on stream in 2020, the oil giants said.
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Ariel Flores, BP's North Sea regional president, said: “We announced our intention to develop Alligin in April and six months later we have achieved regulatory approval. Always maintaining our focus on safety, we are modernising and transforming how we work in the North Sea to fully realise the potential of our portfolio.
“Alligin is part of our advantaged oil story, rescuing stranded reserves and tying them back into existing infrastructure. Developments like this have shorter project cycles, allowing us to bring on new production quicker. These subsea tiebacks complement our major startups and underpin BP’s commitment to the North Sea.”
The fast-tracked development, 140km west of Shetland, was approved by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), and will use new subsea infrastructure including gas lift and water injection pipeline systems, with Deepsea Aberdeen’s rig drilling the pair of wells.
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It is BP’s second approval for North Sea drilling in the last two months, after it received regulatory approval for its Vorlich oil field in September, where it hopes to fill 30m barrels of oil.
Meanwhile, its development at its Clair Ridge field is expected to begin later this year, targeting 640m barrels of oil and 120,000 barrels of oil a day.
Brenda Wyllie, west of Shetland and northern North Sea area manager for the OGA, said BP and Shell’s Alligin field will benefit from storing oil in its recently built Glen Lyon ship, which can store and offload oil
“[It] is a good example of the competitive advantage available to operators from the extensive infrastructure installed in the UK continental shelf,” she added.