£3bn lift from ‘small pool’ tech

New subsea technologies and approaches to field developments could generate some £3 billion from the North Sea, it was claimed today.

Research outfit Wood Mackenzie and Aberdeen’s Oil & Gas Technology Centre said the facility’s “Tie-back of the Future” initiative, which aims to both half the cost and half the time to develop small pools, would make an additional 400 million barrels economic.

The initiative brings together 25 operators, supply chain firms and technology developers to transform the approach to developing marginal fields. Creating a “circular economy”, whereby subsea equipment is designed for disassembly and reuse, is at the heart of the scheme.

The UK Continental Shelf has about 10 per cent of the world’s small pools and with some 27 billion barrels in small pools globally there is hugepotentialtotaketechnologies and systems developed in Scotland to other areas with marginal fields.

To date, the technology centre has invested £250,000 in engineering activity to develop the initiative, five technology projects are underway, 13 technology proposals are in the pipeline and six integrated studies have been completed.

Chris Pearson, small pools solution centre manager for the Oil & Gas Technology Centre, said: “Small pools represent a big prize for the UK economy but they each have their own challenges. The Tieback of the Future concept is making significant strides to making more of these fields economically viable.”

Wood Mackenzie analyst Mhairidh Evans said: “As well as providing much-needed new investment, unlocking small pools is key to extending the life of existing infrastructure.”