BP double success in the North Sea

UK supermajor BP announced two new exploration discoveries in the North Sea at Achmelvich and Capercaillie that is timely boost for the UK oil and gas industry.

The discoveries at Capercailli were made in Block 29/4e in the Central North Sea, and Achmelvich, in Block 206/9b west of Shetland. Both wells were drilled by the Paul B Loyd Junior rig in Summer 2017.

The Capercaillie well was drilled to a total depth of 3,750 metres and encountered light oil and gas-condensate in Paleocene and Cretaceous-age reservoirs. The Achmelvich well was drilled to a total depth of 2,395 metres and encountered oil in Mesozoic-age reservoirs. Evaluation and interpretation of the well results is ongoing to assess future options.

Mark Thomas, BP North Sea Regional president said: “These are exciting times for BP in the North Sea as we lay the foundations of a refreshed and revitalised business that we expect to double production to 200,000 barrels a day by 2020 and keep producing beyond 2050.

Fiona Legate, Senior Analyst, North Sea Upstream at Wood Mackenzie said: "It's early days in terms of assessing development options for the two discoveries and further drilling may be need to firm up future plans. Both fields are near producing infrastructure and could be fast-tracked into production in the near term. 

Despite its recent divestments in the North Sea, BP clearly is clearly still committed to the UK. It plans to double production by 2020 to 200,000 bpd. Development of these two discoveries, plus other opportunities in its portfolio will help to achieve this target. Production from the core West of Shetlands developments Clair and Schiehallion will ramp up over the near term. We estimate BP’s UK production will reach 180,000 b/d in 2020 which highlights the gap future investments can help to fill."

BP is 100 per cent owner of Capercaillie and the Achmelvich well partnership comprises BP (operator, 52.6 per cent), Shell (28 per cent) and Chevron (19.4 per cent).