UK North Sea league table sees changes

There’s been a raft of relegations and promotions in the last year for the league table of the top 15 production hubs in the UK North Sea.

Assets owned by Harbour Energy, Shell and BP have earned promotion to the top tier, while certain Equinor, TotalEnergies and EnQuest assets have been relegated.

The data, compiled by Dundas Consultants through companies’ statutory production reporting, represent hubs which accounted for 58% of total production from the UK sector over the course of 2023.

There’s no change to the top three, made up of TotalEnergies’ Elgin (1st) and Culzean (2nd) and BP’s West of Shetland hub Clair.

But the tail-end has seen major change on 2022 as TotalEnergies’ Shetland Gas Plant, Equinor’s Mariner and EnQuest’s Kraken hubs exit, replaced by Harbour’s Tolmount (15), BP’s ETAP (14) and Shell’s Gannet (13).

Another new entrant on the table is Italian oil major Eni as operator of the Cygnus hub in the Southern North Sea, having acquired Neptune Energy’s business.

Collectively, the top 15 produced 446 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2023, down from 501m in 2022, with overall decline of 12% per hub compared to the previous year.

Despite Apache’s decision in June to cancel North Sea drilling due to the windfall tax, Dundas’ data shows Beryl has risen four places from 12th to eighth place, with a 30% year-on-year gain.

Dundas director Richard Woodhouse said: “It’s fascinating to compile the production trends year on year and see how the fortunes of the hubs are evolving and who the key operators are.

“The hub view is important from a supply chain perspective as these are the oilfield services ‘demand centres’ with the big spending power and the longer futures.

“These top performing hubs are driving UK security of supply, balance of payment benefits and economic activity including high quality jobs.

“The evolving Harbour story has been fascinating to watch as they’ve brought together smaller players to become a major force. ENI is new to the top 15 after their high-profile acquisition of Neptune”.

ASSETS: One of the improved production hubs was Shell’s Gannet Alpha platform.