BP To Reopen “Uneconomic” North Sea Oil Field
BP is to reopen a key North Sea field and pump new oil and gas for at least a decade, despite Ed Miliband’s attempts to cut back the offshore industry
The energy giant is reviving the Murlach field, which was declared uneconomic and taken out of use in 2004, has now become viable partly due to new technologies.
BP won agreement to reopen Murlach, 120 miles east of Aberdeen, under the previous government and has since been installing equipment, with production potentially restarting next month.
The milestone comes despite efforts by the Energy Secretary to bring an end to new fossil fuel production in the North Sea. Mr Miliband and his predecessors have almost doubled the taxation rate on oil and gas profits and banned the issuing of licences for new exploration and production.
BP said the Murlach field contained 20 million barrels of recoverable oil and 600 million cubic metres of gas – enough to keep it in production for 11 years. “Murlach is expected to produce around 20,000 barrels of oil and 17 million cubic feet of gas per day,” it said.
It means BP can partially reverse the decline in North Sea output, which has seen oil production fall from 96,000 barrels per day in 2020 to 70,000 last year. Gas production has fallen from 221m square feet a day to 197m.
Full story here.
What is significant is here is the introduction of new technologies to make all this possible. How many other abandoned fields can be brought back into production in this way?
Naturally Greenpeace are not happy, with Doug Parr saying:
“The North Sea is on death’s door. Reserves are drying up and what’s left and untapped is barely enough to keep it on life support. The only sensible thing to do is to pivot [from] the North Sea to something we have an abundance of, and something that will never run out – wind.”
But Mike Tholen, of trade body Offshore Energies UK, commented:
“Redevelopment of decommissioned fields is now a feature of the North Sea as new and innovative technologies make such opportunities possible. Looking ahead, the independent Climate Change Committee says the UK will need 13 billion to 15 billion barrels by 2050 come what may.
We could produce half of this at home. But at the moment only four billion barrels are on track to be realised, which means imports will have to rise and the UK economy will miss out as jobs and capital move overseas.”
In what world, other than crazy Ed’s, would it make sense to import that oil and gas when we could produce it ourselves at great benefit both to the economy and government revenues?
See more here notalotofpeopleknowthat
Header image: Hughes Consultancy
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