BP commits to two new North Sea developments

BP has committed to two new North Sea developments that are expected to produce 30,000 bbl gross of oil equivalent a day (boed) at peak production.

Alligin and Vorlich are satellite fields located near to existing infrastructure, meaning they can be quickly developed through established offshore hubs.

Alligin, a two-well development west of Shetland, will be tied back to BP’s Glen Lyon floating, production, storage and offloading vessel.

Vorlich, also a two-well development in the central North Sea, will be tied back to the Ithaca Energy-operated FPF-1 floating production facility, which lies at the center of Ithaca’s Greater Stella Area production hub.

Both fields are expected to come onstream in 2020.

BP also confirmed that it has awarded a major contract for the Alligin development to Subsea 7, which will provide project management, engineering, procurement and construction services for the subsea pipelines. Subsea 7 will deliver the contract from its Aberdeen base with offshore activities expected to get under way in 2019.

Meanwhile, BP has submitted its environmental statement for the Vorlich development to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is finalizing its contracting strategy for the development.

“BP is working hard to modernize and transform the way we work, and a key focus of this is maintaining safety while optimizing the pace at which we deliver activity,” Ariel Flores, incoming BP North Sea Regional President, said. “Through our Alligin and Vorlich developments, we are simplifying and accelerating the stages of delivery to improve project cycle time, reduce costs and, importantly, add new production to our North Sea portfolio. These projects follow on from a period of record investment by BP in the North Sea, which helped deliver our Quad 204 project last year and will deliver our Clair Ridge project which is planned to start up later in 2018. While not on the same scale as Quad 204 and Clair Ridge, Alligin and Vorlich will lead to significant production gains and further demonstrate BP’s commitment to the North Sea.”

Alligin (BP 50% operator; Shell 50%) is a 20 million bbl recoverable oil field in the Greater Schiehallion Area, located approximately 140 km west of Shetland.

Vorlich (BP 66% operator; Ithaca Energy 34%) will recover over 30 million boe and is located approximately 241 km east of Aberdeen.