Page 5 - EurOil Week 18 2021

EurOil COMMENTARY EurOil

utility Centrica. On April 18, Spirit started pro- Meanwhile, Neptune also has various other
duction from a life extension project at its York tieback projects under development, to which it
gas field, around 34 km off the North East York- has now added Pegasus West. Among these is its
shire coastline. Fenja project, which will be tie back to Equinor’s
The field, which was previously only expected Njord-A platform, involving the world’s longest
to operate until last year, will now stay online electrically trace-heated pipe-in-pipe subsea
until 2023-24. It is anticipated to produce a fur- development. It is anticipated to enter service in
ther 18 bcf (510mn cubic metres) as a result of the first quarter of 2022.
the life extension. Neptune also recently kicked off drilling at
Separately, Spirit said on April 26 that it had the Duva oilfield, which is set to be a fast-track
approved a new infill well at its Oda field in the subsea tieback to its Gjoa platform. (See EurOil
Norwegian North Sea. The company expects Week 17)
the well to help accelerate production from the Other companies developing tieback pro-
field. jects include Tailwind Energy, which recently
While both of these projects are compara- announced an FID on its Evelyn tieback to the
tively small, they illustrate operator efforts to Triton floating production, storage and offload-
boost output from existing assets. The trend ing (FPSO) facility. That project is due to enter These various
has been apparent in various offshore regions service by late 2022.
for some time, gaining in popularity against a Other projects still have already entered North Sea
backdrop of weak commodity prices because service, such as BP’s Vorlich field, which came projects illustrate
new exploration and development is far more online in November 2020 as a tieback to Ithaca
costly. Subsea tiebacks to existing infrastruc- Energy’s FPF-1 floating production facility. The that opportunities
ture have also become an increasingly popular field is expected to have peak production of
option, including in the North Sea, with Pegasus 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). are still available,
West the most recent example of this. These various North Sea projects illustrate
that opportunities are still available, even if even if some are
Tieback push some are relatively small in scale. They also relatively small in
Other tieback projects in the works include the show that giants such as Equinor and BP still
Breidablikk oilfield, which is thought to be one view tiebacks as an attractive option, even as scale.
of the largest undeveloped fields on the Norwe- they increasingly pivot towards renewables and
gian Continental Shelf (NCS). Equinor and its low-carbon energy.
partners in the field submitted a development Subsea tiebacks offer a relatively affordable
plan to Norwegian regulators in September option to bring production online in consid-
2020, proposing to tie Breidablikk back to the erably less time than it would take to develop
Grane platform. The NOK18.6bn ($2.2bn) pro- a new offshore project. The more oil and gas
ject is anticipated to enter service in 2024, with prices stabilise – and even strengthen – the
expected output of around 200mn barrels over more North Sea producers are likely to pursue
its lifetime. such projects.™

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