UK Continental Shelf

Organizers of the Oil & Gas Authority’s decarbonization competition are looking for ideas to bring electrification and an integrated energy basin closer to reality.

The latest agreement between Wood and Equinor will begin January 2021. The contract follows recent agreements between the two companies for the Breidablikk development in the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

For the seventh straight year, the regulatory body has found offshore operations continue to improve based on an efficiency model developed in partnership with the SPE.

Despite the global downturn, the long-term transition to net zero presents a major opportunity to create new multibillion industries based around the North Sea. Cross-sector collaboration and major state/private sector intervention, together with strong leadership, will be key.

The Hydrogen Offshore Production project identifies an alternative to decommissioning by providing reuse options for offshore infrastructure. It aims to prove the feasibility of decentralized hydrogen generation, storage, and distribution to provide a bulk hydrogen solution.

One of the largest industrial projects in the UK in recent years, Mariner marks Equinor’s first operated field on the UK Continental Shelf. It is expected to produce 70,000 BOPD at peak rates.

The strategy supports the Maximise Economic Recovery from UK Oil & Gas Strategy and Vision 2035, whose goal is to achieve £140 billion additional gross revenue from UKCS production by that time.

The $635-million deal sees Oman-based Petrogas and Norwegian private equity company HitecVision acquire a package of non-core North Sea assets, including 100% ownership stake in four fields.

One of the largest pre-sanction fields on the UK Continental Shelf, Rosebank, could significantly bolster the company’s UK portfolio. However, the field’s water depth and harsh environment may run development costs into the multibillion-dollar range.

The round marked a continuation of a recent trend on the UKCS in which lesser-known firms and newcomers have gained stature, replacing more-familiar, bigger operators that have pared down their North Sea positions.