MAERSK OIL

Excitement Builds as Culzean Gas

Megaproject Advances

Maersk Oil and co-ventures JX Nippon and BP are readying themselves for an extremely busy time as

progress with the Culzean Gas Megaproject in the UK North Sea gathers pace…

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PRODUCTION: David Napier

MAERSK OIL

//The UK energy market, just like markets around the world, is a changing one. People are

demanding that more comes from less; that power is ethically produced; that the lights never go out; and that energy doesn’t cost the earth. It’s a problem that the energy companies have had for some time and one which for a long time had no real answer. But today, the

and this £3 billion investment comes on the back of massive government support for the sector.”

Maersk Oil and its partners are investing around £3 bn (USD $4.5 bn) in the development, with more than 50% committed to investments in the UK. Over the projected life of the field, it’s anticipated that £2.1 bn (USD $3.3 bn) in operating expenditure will be spent in the UK domestic market. The Culzean field aligns with the UK’s commitment to increased gas-fired electricity generation and is expected to support an estimated 6,000 UK jobs and create more than 400 direct jobs.

Maersk Oil CEO, Jakob Thomasen said: “Culzean is an important development for the UK and also for Maersk Oil and our co-venturers. We are pleased the field will support UK

//WE WILL BE HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY TO DEVELOP A 21ST CENTURY FACILITY WITH THE ABILITY TO REMOTELY MONITOR CRITICAL EQUIPMENT 24 HOURS A DAY, AND ENABLE OFFSHORE COLLEAGUES TO ACCESS REAL TIME DATA AND IMMEDIATE TECHNICAL EVALUATION AND ONSHORE SUPPORT//

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energy mix is spread; we get power from oil, gas, wind, nuclear, biomass, the sun, the sea and many other sources. Today, energy is changing; not just in where it comes from, but also how we get it and how we use it – this is a good thing, it stimulates growth and innovation and gives platforms like Energy Focus a reason to exist. But nevertheless, even with all the invention

and progress into new energy sources, the world’s major economies and many of the emerging economies are still based around traditional fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal.

In the UK, renewable energy is certainly on the rise; there’s wind and solar farms going up all over the countryside and around the coast, but the bulk of supply still comes from fossil fuels, coal and gas, and this will remain the case for some time to come.

Interestingly, many commentators have stated that gas production from UK North Sea fields has declined since 2000 and remaining resources are becoming more difficult and hence more expensive to find and extract. However, in 2008 the industry received a massive boost when Maersk Oil and its partners discovered the Culzean gas condensate field.

Culzean’s reserves are estimated at 250-300 million barrels of oil equivalent and production is expected to start in 2019 and continue for at least 13 years, with plateau production of 60,000-90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Maersk Oil operates Culzean which is located in Block 22/25a, and the other development partners include JX Nippon and BP (Britoil). Reports suggest that Culzean could supply around 5% of the UK’s total gas consumption by 2020/21.

In August 2015, development of Culzean was approved by the UK Oil & Gas Authority and was welcomed by Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne MP who said: “…the North Sea is open for business. Already the UK’s oil and gas industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country

economic growth as well as extend understanding of HPHT (High Pressure, High Temperature) development. Culzean is the latest in a series of large investments by Maersk Oil in the North Sea where we are active in Denmark, Norway and the UK – reflecting our commitment to the future of the North Sea region.”

Andy Samuel, Chief Executive of the Oil & Gas Authority said: “Maersk Oil and partners’ £3 billion investment to develop the Culzean discovery is excellent news for the UK during a period when the decline in global oil prices has created difficult operating conditions for this critical sector of our economy.”

The UK currently runs a number of gas power stations and has more plans for the future as the government

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Continues on page 17 >>>

MAERSK OIL

access real time data and immediate technical evaluation and onshore support. The technology will minimise time spent on plant and enhance safety and efficiency. Maersk Oil estimates this digital toolkit can save more than USD $10 m annually.”

CULZEAN - HPHTThe Culzean field is a HPHT field and accessing the gas and exporting is not a simple process.

“The Culzean reservoirs sit beneath all the traditional reservoirs that play in the North Sea. They also sit beneath what’s called the chalk package which makes it very difficult to see seismically through all the reservoirs, then through the chalk, then down to the Culzean reservoirs themselves,” Urquhart explains.

“Culzean sits due east, 260 km off the coast of Aberdeen. It sits in the central North Sea. It’s a classic HPHT provenance where we’re sitting down in the Jurassic and Triassic intervals.

“The slightly unusual thing about HPHT is that we’re required to start the drilling a number of years before the platform facilities are installed. As it takes about nine months for each well to be drilled, in order for us to have three wells available to meet the capacity requirement start-up, we need to start the drilling approximately two years before the main topside is installed,” explains Engineering Manager, Stuart McAuley.

In a HPHT well, the environment is hostile. Temperatures, pressure and forces are extreme.

Subsurface Manager, Claus Bjerregaard says: “Culzean is a unique

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MAKING EVERY TRIP COUNT.

ZeroTime™ is a game-changing logging-while-working solution that eliminates stand-alone diagnostic surveys by adding intelligence to routine trips in hole. ZeroTime™ enables operators to plan their next move in total confidence with zero-added rig time.

- Minimise risk

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- Minimise costs

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Well intervention specialist, READ Cased Hole launches its latest logging technology, ZeroTime, at SPE ICoTA Coiled Tubing and Well Intervention Conference & Exhibition in Houston. ZeroTime from READ Cased Hole (READ) is an innovative and pioneering new service line that allows companies operating in the oil and gas industry to acquire accurate, high definition data in order to understand downhole conditions and, as a result, make informed decisions to maximise efficiency.

READ is the specialist in production and integrity evaluation, delivering fast and reliable cased hole log data analysis. Thanks to the current climate in the energy industry, efforts to minimise costs and maximise efficiency are at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

The benefits of ZeroTime include maximising operational efficiency, minimising risk and operational cost so that qualified decisions can be made quickly and with confidence.

“We are thrilled to be launching ZeroTime at ICoTA in Houston this year and look forward to the opportunity to position ZeroTime as the “go-to” solution when it comes to safe and efficient logging while working. A number of our clients have seen the benefits of ZeroTime, but it’s still early days – we are confident that more operators will see it as the reliable technology to acquire fast, actionable intelligence to help save valuable time and resource,” says READ CEO, Roy Martin.

ZeroTime has proven itself after being used in rigorous operations in the North Sea where it completed 800 successful surveys in customer wells. During these operations, ZeroTime demonstrated a saving of circa 24 hours per operation by eliminating the need for dedicated logging runs.

Technical Manager, Maurillio Addario says: “With ZeroTime, we’re allowing intervention into the well, which would otherwise serve a purely mechanical purpose, to also be an intelligent run.

“The sensors deployed by ZeroTime are capable of withstanding all the challenges that come with a mechanical run in terms of g-forces, tensile and compressive stresses. Not only that but delivering uncompromised data quality when compared to a dedicated logging run and even preserving pump-through capabilities when deployed in drill-pipe or coil.

“The immediate benefit of ZeroTime survey(s) to the operator comes in the form of minimised operational risk, maximised operating efficiency and minimised intervention cost. The risk element for example; there is risk associated with every downhole run - it can be human error or equipment failure, and reducing a number of separate runs means reducing the chance of something going wrong. Furthermore, ZeroTime

can eliminate the need for a dedicated wireline set up with a dedicated crew, which would greatly minimise associated risks and costs to the operator.

Addario is confident that this versatile system can be used in any environment: “While ZeroTime has been primarily used in the North Sea, it provided us an insight into how reliable ZeroTime is and we are now working on a number of projects focussed on taking ZeroTime worldwide.

“The sector as a whole is suffering just now but there is an extremely important synergy between this product line and the mechanical fracking operations that are happening in North America for example. ZeroTime is a perfect fit for such operations as it would be able to deliver a much clearer picture of the condition of the wells without adding any extra rig time.”

With regards to the launch of ZeroTime at ICoTA, Addario says: “The reaction at SPE ICoTA in Houston was fantastic. We had a very good reception. At these times of low oil prices, there’s been a refocus on minimising cost and risk and ZeroTime aligns with this need.

“It quickly became clear that there is an appetite for ZeroTime in the industry.”

A select number of multinational operators and global oil and gas companies have used ZeroTime and the fact that the service offers ‘logging-while-working’ highlights the huge savings to be had.

“ZeroTime does not require any extra time whatsoever – it works at the same time with the mechanical run, so this is a two for one scenario, where the client gets the advantage of valuable data and fast decision making ability.

“Maersk Oil is an existing client that uses ZeroTime logging while working technology and the experience has been very successful,” says Addario.

Whether deployed on slickline, coiled tubing or drill pipe ZeroTime technology integrates straight into the bottom-hole-assembly using standard connections, maintaining tension, compression, torque and pump-through characteristics. The assembly requires no special treatment and can be kept at the wellsite for the duration of campaign activities, with READ’s specialist engineers mobilizing on demand, as and when required, for each well in the sequence.

“There isn’t an equivalent identical proposition out there,” says Addario.

READ’s innovation is set to become an important part of the industry and its proven success in reducing cost, maximising efficiency and creating an informed decision making means that ZeroTime is a package with benefits for everyone.

www.zerotime.info - www.readcasedhole.com

looks to cement the backbone of its longstanding stable and secure supply.

CUTTING STEELIn April, the first steel was cut for the billion dollar topsides. A ceremony for the first of the three topsides modules took place at the Sembcorp Marine Offshore Platforms (SMOP - formerly known as SMOE) Admiralty Yard in Singapore.

Jakob Thomasen was present at the event along with a number of stakeholders and he initiated the steel cutting for the project – which is now considered a Megaproject.

“Starting the fabrication of the topsides is an important milestone,” he said. “When the field begins to produce in 2019, Culzean will become a key contributor to Maersk Oil’s ambition to become a Top 5 operator in the North Sea in the 2020s, and provide around 5% of UK gas demand at peak production. Maersk Oil and co-venturers’ investment will also support employment in both the UK and Asian supply chains.

“Our focus for the next three years is working with our partners and suppliers to deliver the project from fabrication right through to commissioning safely, on time and within budget.”

Culzean Project Director, Martin Urquhart said: “We will be harnessing technology to develop a 21st century facility with the ability to remotely monitor critical equipment 24 hours a day, and enable offshore colleagues to

<<< Continues from page 15

//MAERSK OIL AND PARTNERS’ £3 BILLION INVESTMENT TO DEVELOP THE CULZEAN DISCOVERY IS EXCELLENT NEWS FOR THE UK DURING A PERIOD WHEN THE DECLINE IN GLOBAL OIL PRICES HAS CREATED DIFFICULT OPERATING CONDITIONS FOR THIS CRITICAL SECTOR OF OUR ECONOMY//

reservoir and a unique project to be on. It is a deep reservoir at 15,000 feet; it’s a prolific sandstone reservoir. It’s high pressure, high temperature at 13,500psi. The reservoir sits next to a salt diaper. From a subsurface perspective, sometimes you have to pinch yourself and remember that 13,500 psi and 350 degrees is quite amazing.”

Because of the unique set of challenges presented by this project, Maersk has had to look to the Far East for some of its steel tubulars.

“The complexities of the drilling program are driven by the challenges of the pressures and temperatures, that’s what makes this type of field unique in its development and why it’s a challenge to the industry and not just Maersk Oil to be able to deal with the temperatures, not only when you’re drilling but also when you’re producing. Because of the dimensions of the well, we’re limited with the wall thickness that we can use to gain strength so we’re also asking the industry to supply steel that’s very strong and that particular product will come from Japan where there’s some very bespoke steelmaking capacity that’s dedicated to making very high-end oil field tubulars,” explains Wells Project Manager, Andrew Lough.

SAFETY – PRIORITY #1As with any new development, or any offshore project, safety is at the heart of all plans that are tabled by Maersk Oil. The design of the platform is a product of safety and functionality.

“Personal safety is key and the most important input as to how we lay out the platforms,” says McAuley. ITC Global brings boundless broadband to even the

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“The basic idea is that we keep the high pressure as far away from where people are living and working as possible and therefore we have the well head platform separated from the main central processing system by a 150m bridge. The main central processing system is then separated from the ULQ by another 100m bridge and this effectively gives us the maximum separation between the high-pressure wells and the accommodation.”

For the next four years and beyond it will be all hands on deck in the North Sea as development activities ramp-up and the project moves through various different phases. Maersk Oil Geoscientist, Katie Milroy says that now is an extremely exciting time and activities are all geared towards achieving the goal of production in three years’ time.

“We’re past the evaluation stage. It’s an exciting stage where

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In 2016, the wellhead jacket will be installed. In 2017, the other two jackets will be installed which will allow drilling activities to commence. In 2018, the CPF and the ULQ will arrive and that will complete the platform layout.

“Subsea will have a number of structures and one large gas export line that will either be 20 or 22 inches and it will head over the tie in point called T5. Then there will also be a pipe in pipe system to carry the

liquids from the central processing platform across to the FSO. There’ll be a flexible riser up to the boat,” says Urquhart. A GAS FUTURE This project is hugely important for the UK energy mix and, according to WoodMac research, is the largest gas field sanctioned since East Brae in 1990. Of course, all involved are excited and enthusiastic.

“Culzean comes on stream as a

number of gas fired power stations are developed within the UK to back up our move away from coal so it’s a very important project on a number of fronts in terms of energy policy and energy security,” says Urquhart.

“Culzean is a significant opportunity and will deliver significant value and gas to the UK market in the year 2020 - it’s exciting to be a part of such an important project for the UK gas supply.” says Bjerregaard.

we are going ahead, we’re drilling the development wells, the platforms are going ahead and we’ve got a plan for first gas in 2019,” she says

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+44 12 2424 2000 @maerskoil

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