NEO Energy, a North Sea-focused oil and gas company has hired Fraser Well Management (FWM) to operate the Victoria well, a shut-in gas condensate well located off the Lincolnshire coast in the southern North Sea.
FWM, the well engineering and project management specialist, earlier this year launched a new turnkey well operatorship division, providing end-to-end well operator support for the entire lifecycle of oil and gas wells.
FWM’s contract to manage the Victoria well comes after it successfully took over operatorship of five production wells and one suspended well on NEO Energy’s Babbage platform in May 2020.
The Victoria well was drilled in 2006 and tied back to the Viking B Complex via a 4km pipeline. Production ceased in 2016 and Victoria has since been shut-in, disconnected, and isolated from the Viking export route, awaiting permanent abandonment.
FWM managing director Nick Ford said: “Our new well operatorship division is seeing growing demand from license holders and operators who now have the option to outsource the management of suspended wells until they are permanently abandoned. For our clients, our involvement takes away the burden of managing the wells and transfers the regulatory responsibility, enabling them to focus on their core exploration and production businesses.”
FWM asset and integrity manager Roy Milne, who heads FWM’s operated well portfolio, said: “Our emergency response teams and incident management facilities are on standby 24/7 and we also carry out the required well status checks, well maintenance and integrity management. This means clients such as NEO Energy can concentrate their in-house resources on managing their productive wells, and drilling for new ones.”
As part of the move, the Victoria well has been integrated into FWM’s well integrity management system, including the transfer of data and compliance verification to the UK regulatory requirements.
NEO Energy asset manager Lynne MacPherson said: “FWM have specialist expertise in managing wells that are at the end of their lifecycle. The support of service providers to manage our late-life well stock enables us to focus our internal resources on the core areas of our business.”