Shell Lodges Application For New North Sea Hydrocarbon Field
Published in Oil Industry News on Monday, 7 September 2015
Oil major Shell has applied to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for consent to develop the Baroli field in the Central North Sea.
The potential of the area is not yet known – but if hydrocarbons were found, they would be produced through the Shearwater Platform, that already exists there
The Baroli hydrocarbon field located in Block 22/30 of the Central North Sea (CNS) ~231 km east of the Scottish coastline and ~26 km west of the UK/Norway median line in water depths of ~90 m.
A Shell spokesperson said: “Baroli is currently being drilled as an exploration well, should Baroli produce commercial quantities of hydrocarbons the well will be cleaned up and production commenced immediately.
No new subsea infrastructure would be installed and only minor topsides modifications required. No new processing facilities would be required in order to accommodate Baroli.
Baroli will be drilled from, and produce through, the Shearwater platform, also located in Block 22/30, 4 km to the south east. Baroli will be developed as a single gas-condensate well which will be a sidetrack, known as 22/30b-BB, from the existing abandoned Shearwater SW06 well. The well will be drilled using the Noble Hans Deul heavy duty jack up mobile drilling vessel which is already on site at Shearwater.
Baroli fluids will be processed on Shearwater via the existing system. Gas will be exported to Bacton via the 34″ Shearwater Elgin Area Line (SEAL) and liquids via the 24″ Graben Area Export Line (GAEL) to Forties Unity and then onto Cruden Bay via the Forties Pipeline System (FPS). ”
Drilling of the exploration well commenced in July 2015, as approved under Drilling Permit MAT DRA/256, and is scheduled to finish in December 2015. The EIA Direction (DR/525) for the drilling work concluded that the operations will not present a significant environmental impact.
