Page 87: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Aug/Sep 2016)

86 88

REGIONAL OVERVIEW new Innovate License, which gives companies up to nine years,” she says. “Companies also don’t have to prove ? nancial capability. This could attract some of the smaller exploration and production companies to acquire acreage.”

Instead of having different licenses, the

Innovate License will have a phased approach with different steps, covering data reprocess-

REGIONAL OVERVIEW ing, seismic acquisition, wells, etc. “It is more ? exible and pragmatic and gives us more ? ex- ibility to mature more of the work programs,”

Newcombe says. The bid scoring system is also being updated.

Go west

The next seismic shoot will focus on south west Britain and east of Shetland, which will be backed up by reprocessing legacy data in those areas. Areas to be targeted include

Morecambe Bay, the Irish Sea, and the

Minches and the East Shetland platform. “People forget areas, like the Western

Approaches,” Newcombe says. “No seismic has been shot for 20 years there. All the Irish area has been covered, but not the British side. They drilled 20 years ago and didn’t ? nd anything massive, so it has been forgotten.”

Another forgotten area is western Britain, such as off Morecambe Bay where the Dragon discovery was made on the border with

Ireland, he adds.

The Orcadian Basin in the East Shetland

Platform could also prove prospective. It’s another area with fewer than 10 wells per 1000sq km, PGS says. “People said it could be really quite prospective, but it’s a different ge- ology to Brent, it’s slightly older, so in the past people kept to what they knew,” Newcombe says. But, he says there’s a similar high in this

Seismic lines – where last year’s Rockhall Trough and Mid North Sea High seismic area to that on which Norway’s massive Johan lines were shot. image from OGA.

Sverdrup discovery was made. “[There has (British Geological Survey) study on the northern North Sea been] some taking from Norwegian learnings and looking at

Paleozoic. This will give people greater insight.” the Orcadian High,” he says.

The new data is giving companies the opportunity to look To further spur commercial activity, a £500,000 competition at deeper horizons, he says. The BGS survey on the northern has been launched to encourage geoscientists and engineers

North Sea Paleozoic is also letting people see where plays ex- to develop interpretations and products potentially using last tend into the onshore, from which they can extrapolate back year’s new seismic data. Wells data from the Outer Moray to the offshore. Firth has also been released to industry.

The industry is also taking matters into its own hands. In

Licensing round the mature areas, a group of operators is working together to

The Rockall Trough and Mid North Sea High will feature organize a “group shoot” seismic campaign. In addition, the th heavily in the 29 licensing round, a round likely to be light BGS, working with industry and government funding, has on license commitments, Legate says. Just seven well commit- completed its study of the northern North Sea Paleozoic po- th ments were featured in the 28 round, which closed right at tential, delivered to its operator sponsors this year. It is due to the start of the oil price crash. With frontier acreage involved, be released to industry more widely in 2017. This project aims fewer well commitments can be expected this time round. to encourage research deeper and wider than conventional hy-

More likely, data reprocessing or shooting seismic surveys drocarbon horizons, covering the Mid North Sea High, Moray could be expected. Firth and Orcadian Basin and the Irish Sea.

This makes it an opportunity, Legate says. “It is an opportuni-

Some £700,000 funding has also been put into the Lyell ty to pick up acreage cheaply with few commitments. Any work

Centre in Edinburgh, a joint venture between BGS and Heriot- completed would bene? t from the low cost base we are seeing,

Watt University. Pst-doctoral study in geoscience and reser- so there is a bit of an opportunity here. What is interesting is the voir engineering is also being funded. oedigital.com August 2016 | OE 89 088_OE0816_Geo3_OGA.indd 89 7/24/16 10:13 AM