Repsol Sinopec eyes extra 10 million barrels from North Sea assets

Repsol Sinopec Resources UK has started working on projects across a number of its assets in the UK North Sea that should realize in the region of an additional 10 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), beginning later this year.

In an update, Repsol Sinopec said that activity is already under way to reinstate production from the Galley field.

A subsea tieback to the Tartan platform, Galley production was halted in August 2012 following a subsea pipeline failure. Repsol Sinopec has said that production is scheduled to re-start in July this year and to continue through at least to cessation of production on Tartan, contributing 1.1m boe at an initial rate of around 1,500 boepd.

Galley production also reduces Tartan’s requirement to import fuel gas, thereby contributing to a further reduction in Tartan operating costs and supporting extended operating life, the company explained.

Also in the Flotta catchment area, reactivation of the drilling package on Claymore is nearing completion and will be followed by a similar reinstatement on Piper Bravo.

On Claymore, this will facilitate a number of well workovers that should realize an additional 4.7m boe, with the potential for infill drilling to follow. The reinstatement of the Piper rig is initially targeting two sidetracks, from a shut-in well and a disused water injection well, that could realize an additional 4.2m boe in total and which are scheduled to begin producing in 3Q 2020.

Tain development plan due by 2019-end

Meanwhile, Repsol Sinopec continues to work closely with field partner RockRose Energy on the development of the Tain field which is expected to be produced over the Bleo Holm floating production vessel in 2021.

A Field Development Plan is due to be delivered by the end of 2019 with the intention of Final Investment Decision to be taken soon afterwards. This development is part of the life of field extension of the Bleo Holm area.

Nicolas Foucart, Chief Operating Officer said: “We are focusing on a number of smaller, incremental production-adding opportunities like these across our portfolio, that can play an important role in helping us to build a sustainable future for the business and that also support the objective of Maximizing Economic Recovery (MER) from the UKCS.

“After some challenging times, we’ve taken huge strides in recent years to control costs and to increase production efficiency, safely. We still have more work to do to, but we are now ready to grow our business, and effective delivery of these projects this year should position us well to capitalize on future such opportunities. We are also working with number of third-parties to progress opportunities to utilize spare capacity in our infrastructure to deliver further MER-compliant projects in the near future.”

Decom work

At the other end of the asset life cycle, Repsol Sinopec continues to progress with decommissioning work on a number of assets that have ceased production.

Repsol Sinopec said that the Ensco 100 rig had been engaged to undertake a program of plugging and abandonment of the five wells that were developed from the bridge-linked Fulmar Advanced Drilling platform, starting in June.

In addition, a HWOU (Hydraulic Work Over Unit) will be mobilized this summer to perform plug & abandonment (P&A) activities on five wells from the Montrose platform.