Is Busta a bust?

Exploration well on the Busta prospect on PL782S has been drilled in 127m of water in the Jotun-Balder area of the Norwegian North Sea. It appears to be a marginal discovery with preliminary resource estimates of 6-60mmboe (vs. pre-drill 50-200mmboe). Two separate gas/condensate and oil-bearing intervals totaling ~25m were encountered -the primary target hitting the reservoir with the secondary target water bearing. Busta is...

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INEOS swoops in for Conoco North Sea

As widely reported over the weekend, INEOS is the front-runner for the ConocoPhillips’ UK North Sea portfolio. ConocoPhillips had a buyer for the portfolio back in 2015, but pulled the deal citing that it had no desire to sell-out at the bottom of oil price cycle, INEOS has beaten other likely UK North Sea focussed contenders which could include Ithaca Energy, Premier Oil, Neptune Energy, Chrysaor and SiccarPoint. The sale, estimated to be around...

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PGNiG expands footprint in Norway

On 18th October PGNiG announced that it had agreed to acquire Equinor's interest in the Tommeliten Alpha gas and condensate field in the Norwegian North Sea. This continues PGNiG's strategy of diversifying its gas supply away from Russia. PGNiG has always had an interest in Norwegian gas seeing it as as logical and accessible source of gas for Poland. As the long term Russian gas supply contracts come to expiry, PGNiG is making bold moves to...

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ConocoPhillips' mix of a North Sea portfolio

ConocoPhillips' is one of the largest operators in the UK North Sea, being the operator of the Britannia area, the J-Area and large swathes of the Southern North Sea. ConocoPhillips is also a non-operated partner in the giant Clair field. Clair is one of the largest oil fields in the UK offshore and located in the West of Shetlands which is making a name for being the last frontier of the UK and is increasingly attracting further exploration...

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Norway awards record 75 exploration licences in 2017 APA

Norway has awarded a record number of 75 exploration licences in the APA 2017 licensing round to 34 companies. The licences comprised 45 in the Norwegian North Sea, 22 in the Norwegian Sea and 8 in the Barents Sea. Statoil was the biggest winnder with 31 awards. Supermajors ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total also picked up licences. Of the E&Ps: Aker BP was the winner with 23 licences (14 as operator) Lundin has been awarded 14 licences (5 as operator) DNO has been awarded in 10 licences Faroe Petroleum has been awarded 8 licences...

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Forties Pipeline System reopens in time for the New Year

On 11th December, INEOS the owner of the Forties Pipeline System, had discovered a hairline crack in the pipeline at Red Moss near Netherley. The crack continued to grow upon monitoring and the entire system was subsequently shutdown. INEOS announced this morning that the repairs are "mechanically" complete with the system being restarted - export rates should resume to previous levels around the new year. The system carries c.450mbbl/d of production from the North Sea to the Kinneil processing facility in Scotland. The 235 mile pipeline links...

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Sangomar Deep - Senegal's first offshore discovery

On 7 October 2014, Cairn Energy and its partners announced that a significant oil discovery had been made in the FAN-1 exploration well in the Sangomar Deep block, Senegal's first offshore discovery 29m net pay Gross oil interval of >500m No OWC encountered Distinct oil types recovered 28-41 API This was followed by a second discovery in the SNE-1 well, announced on 10 November 2014 36m net pay Gross oil interval of 95m with gas...

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