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First oil from Lancaster field in UK first
Hurricane Energy has produced first oil from the Lancaster field, located west of the Shetland Islands, via the Aoka Mizu floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO). According to Chief Executive Robert Trice, Lancaster is the UK’s first producing fractured basement field, producing oil from naturally-occurring fissures in the granite that lies below the softer sandstone where most other North Sea oil and gas comes from. The field’s two wells produced 20,000 b/d of oil in a 72-hour production test.
Discovered in 2009, the Lancaster field holds recoverable resources of more than 500mn barrels of oil. However, some in the industry reportedly remain uncertain about Hurricane’s ability to deliver a sizeable portion of these reserves due to the fractured and unpredictable nature of the basin.
Hurricane is using a £365mn early production system (EPS) to determine how best to progress Lancaster to full-field development. The company is understood to have originally targeted production of some 37mn barrels of oil from the EPS over six years at a rate of 17,000 b/d. It now expects to extend the EPS to 10 years, allowing it to target 62mn barrels.
Aoka Mizu FPSO
Source: Hurricane Energy/Ralph Ehoff
