BP has launched a "return to growth" for its North Sea business after marking first oil from the Quad 204 project, west of Shetland on the UK Continental Shelf.
Quad 204 is redevelopment of the 1 billion barrel plus Schiehallion and Loyal fields, which were discovered in 1993 and 1994 respectively, and have already produced 400 MMbo since starting production in 1998. The redevelopment seeks to tap a further 450 MMbo and extend field life out to beyond 2035.
Production is expected to ramp up through 2017 to a plateau level of 130,000 b/d via the newbuild Glen Lyon floating production, storage and offloading vessel, built at Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea, and described as the largest of its type.
As well as the newbuild FPSO, which replaced the Schiehallion FPSO, the Quad 204 project saw a major upgrade and replacement of subsea facilities and a continuous drilling program of up to 20 new wells using Odfjell's Deepsea Aberdeen semisubmersible to enable the full development of the reserves. Polymer flood enhanced oil recovery could also be used on the field.
VIDEO: Watch a drone video of the Glen Lyon.
First oil at Glen Lyon marks the first step in BP's plans to grow its UK North Sea production to 200,000 boe/d by 2020. Next year, BP expects first production at its Clair Ridge project. The firm also plans to take part in up to five exploration wells over the next 18 months as well as drilling about 50 development wells over the next three to four years.
Globally, Quad 204 is BP's third of seven major upstream projects due on stream in 2017, following the earlier start-ups of the Trinidad onshore compression project and the Taurus/Libra development in the West Nile Delta project in Egypt. New projects starting up through 2016 and 2017 are expected to deliver 500,000 boe/d net new production capacity for BP by the end of this year. With further projects beginning production through to the end of the decade, BP expects approximately 800,000 boe/d production from new projects by 2020.
Bob Dudley, BP Group CEO, says: “The start of production from Quad 204 – one of the largest recent investments in the UK – is an important milestone for BP, marking a return to growth for our North Sea business. As one of the series of important, higher-margin major projects that are now steadily coming on line for BP, it also underpins our expectation for growing production and cash flows from our Upstream business over the coming few years.”
Mark Thomas, Regional President for BP’s North Sea business, said: “In safely delivering first oil from the Quad 204 project, we have succeeded in one of the largest ever UK mid-life offshore redevelopments. BP has developed a strong track record of finding, developing and operating big offshore oil resources west of Shetland - we have and will continue to use the latest technology to maximize recovery from the Schiehallion Area.”
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