Culzean gas field in UK North Sea brought into production by Total

Oil and gas industry news : French oil and gas giant Total and its partners in Block 22/25a in the UK North Sea have started production from the Culzean gas field, which is estimated to contain 250-300 million barrels of oil equivalent reserves.

Total with a stake of 49.99% is the operator of the Culzean gas field and its partners are BP (32% stake) and Japan-based JX Nippon (18.01% stake).

The gas condensate field, which is located 230km off the Aberdeen coast, has a plateau production of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d). This amount is expected to meet almost 5% of the UK’s gas demand.

For Total, starting up the Culzean gas field means the company is now supplying 18% of the gas consumed in the UK.

Culzean gas field project. Photo courtesy of Total.

Contained in the East Central Graben region of the central North Sea, the UK offshore gas condensate field was discovered by Maersk Oil in 2008 much before its acquisition by Total. The Culzean field is made up of lean gas accumulations in sandstone of the Jurassic Pentland formation as well as the Triassic Skaggerak formation.

Arnaud Breuillac – Total Exploration & Production President, commenting on the start-up of the Culzean gas field, said: “The Culzean project is delivered ahead of schedule and more than 10% below the initial budget, which represents Capex savings of more than 500 million dollars. This has been achieved thanks to the excellent performance of the project teams in charge of the construction and drilling operations.

“Culzean is a good example of our efforts to upgrade our portfolio in the North Sea over the last years, notably by bringing Total and Maersk Oil together.”

Considered as the largest UK gas field in the UK to be sanctioned in the last 25 years, Culzean has been developed through the drilling of six wells, construction of the FSO Ailsa, a floating storage and offloading (FSO) unit to store the produced condensation, along with the construction of three bridge-linked platforms.

The gas produced from the Culzean gas field is sent via the CATS pipeline and the UK National Grid. On the other hand, the condensate stored in the FSO Ailsa is offloaded using a shuttle tanker.