Alwyn Area Northern North Sea / operations
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people/power our success
the company/overview TOTAL E&P UK Limited is one of the largest oil and gas companies in the UK and part of the global business of the TOTAL Group, the fourth largest integrated oil and gas company in the world. The TOTAL Group, which has its headquarters in Paris, has operations in 130 countries and employs almost 100,000 people worldwide. The Group’s operations cover the entire range of oil and gas related activities, including exploration & production, trading & shipping and refining & marketing - as well as the manufacture and supply of a comprehensive range of chemical products. The UK Upstream subsidiary, TOTAL E&P UK, has its headquarters in Aberdeen, Europe’s oil and gas capital, and is one of the largest operators on the UK Continental Shelf in terms of production and reserves. The company employs over 700 people, split between its onshore sites and its offshore facilities. Being part of an international Group means that the workforce includes both local and expatriate staff, drawn from more than 30 countries. With its affiliates, TOTAL E&P UK owns and operates the Alwyn North, Dunbar, Ellon, Grant, Nuggets, Forvie, Jura and Otter fields in the Northern North Sea. It also operates the Elgin, Franklin, West Franklin and Glenelg Fields in the Central Graben Area of the Central North Sea. The company and its UK affiliates also have a number of non-operated interests in the Central and Northern North Sea including Bruce, ETAP, Alba, Armada and Nelson and has an interest in the Sullom Voe Oil Terminal on Shetland. Onshore, TOTAL E&P UK operates the St Fergus Gas Terminal on the northeast coast of Scotland, which receives and processes up to 20% of the UK’s natural gas requirements from over 20 fields in the UK and Norway. It owns 100% of the Terminal’s facilities and 50% of the Common Facilities, the remainder of the plant being owned by the Norwegian Association, Gassled. The company has a 100% interest in the UK Frigg pipeline (FUKA), an interest in the SEAL (Shearwater Elgin Area Line) pipeline through Elgin Franklin Oil and Gas Limited (EFOG), which is owned 77.5% by Elf Exploration UK Limited and 22.5% by Gaz de France. EFOG has a 25.73 per cent share in SEAL.
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producing safely/our top priority The welfare of its workforce is TOTAL E&P UK’s top priority and it conducts all its activities taking full account of the health and safety of its people, ensuring the safest possible working environment and the prevention of work-related illness. Our goal is to achieve an accidentfree work environment and thinking ‘Safety First’ is the responsibility of all staff at their work locations, whether onshore or offshore. Best in class environmental performance is another major goal.
We set measurable safety, health and environmental objectives and work hard to improve performance, making sure that all our staff and contractors are fully equipped to understand and implement our procedures. In addition, we work with partners, suppliers, competitors, regulators and the general public in developing and testing our emergency plans, which we believe help to set and raise industry standards. We also encourage a broad culture of openness and co-operation in the firm belief that this creates a positive attitude towards the advancement in understanding and improvement of performance in the areas of safety, health and environment – all of which is reviewed and audited. Those who contribute directly to improvements are recognised and performance evaluations for all employees include safety, health and environmental aspects. This is particularly important for those employees with managerial or supervisory responsibilities.
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TOTAL E&P UK continues to maintain its company-wide registration to ISO-14001, the international Environment Management System standard. This is globally recognised as reflecting a level of ‘good business practice’ and underlines a company’s genuine commitment to sustainable development. We are very proud of this achievement and through the maintenance and improvement of our management systems, hope to continue improving our environmental performance. 2008 saw the launch of TOTAL E&P UK’s Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Vision – five individual elements that work together to drive our SHE performance. These five areas – competence, supervision, SHE culture, risk assessment and asset integrity – will give us clear platforms on which to focus our efforts in the coming years.
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Alwyn/potential unleashed Located in the northern North Sea some 440km to the Northeast of Aberdeen, the Alwyn North Field lies at the heart of the Alwyn Area Hub, a series of fields discovered and developed by TOTAL E&P UK over more than two decades. The fields currently developed are all 100% owned and operated by TOTAL E&P UK and comprise Alwyn North, Dunbar, Ellon, Grant, Nuggets, Forvie North and Jura. The Alwyn North Platform provides water for injection and power to the surrounding fields and receives the gas and produced water through a series of inter-field cables and pipelines. Alwyn North has celebrated over 21 years of production and will continue to act as the Hub for developments in the area for at least another twenty years. Over one billion barrels of oil equivalent have so far been produced through the Hub. Extensive ongoing investment in asset integrity work and new technologies is ensuring the facilities remain safe and capable of continued long-term operation, facilitating the development of new significant discoveries as well as small or technically challenging accumulations – including some discovered many years ago that would not have been viable in the past. By fully utilising the existing Alwyn North Platform, the Frigg Pipeline and the St Fergus Gas Terminal near Peterhead, North of Aberdeen, this will remain a vital production hub for TOTAL E&P UK and potentially many other operators and play an ever increasing role in security of supply for the UK.
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Alwyn/the history In 1965, Exploration Licences were granted for the Alwyn Area and in 1971 drilling began. Within one year, the Dunbar, Ellon and Grant discoveries had been made but the fields were not considered economic at that time. Four years later, the larger Alwyn North discovery was made. Although more viable because of its greater size it was still a very complex geological structure and, despite considerable amounts of costly evaluation, a decision to develop could not be taken. Five different compartments were identified: Statfjord, containing gas and condensate; Brent North, Brent Northwest, Brent East and Brent Southwest, all containing oil. By 1980, the arrival of new technologies facilitated a three-dimensional seismic survey to be conducted that provided much-needed additional information about the structure of the field and provide the confidence to develop. This resulted, in 1982, in the completion of a ÂŁ1,500 million plan to develop the Statfjord and Brent reservoirs of the field. Production began in 1987. Brent Southwest, the most southerly reservoir compartment, was developed as a subsea satellite called the Alwyn North Extension and was brought onstream in 1992. One year later a discovery was made in the deeper Triassic reservoir beneath the original Alwyn North Brent reservoir. With the installation of the Alwyn North platform it became possible to develop the earlier discoveries, using the Frigg Transportation System (now known as the Frigg UK line or FUKA) and the St Fergus Gas Terminal, to which gas is still exported today. Some ÂŁ700 million was spent developing Dunbar, which came onstream in 1994 followed by Ellon in 1995 and Grant in 1998. Improvements to the gas-handling plant on Alwyn North in 1999 increased processing capacity, enabling the development of the nearby Nuggets Fields. In 2004 the subsea development of Forvie North was possible via a subsea pipeline to Alwyn and in 2006 the Grant production was temporarily rerouted to Alwyn through the Forvie pipeline to facilitate the development of the Jura field. Following a fast-track development, May 2008 saw gas from the new Jura field connected to the Forvie Subsea Manifold via a 3km tie-in and then produced through the existing infrastructure to Alwyn North. New technology is also playing a part in maximising production of the Alwyn Area, including multi-phase pumps on Dunbar and seismic reprocessing that has enabled accurate and successful targeting of undeveloped portions of Triassic and Brent reservoirs in the Alwyn North area. Technological advancement has also helped to more accurately identify exploration targets in the area, including the Islay discovery in 2008.
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Alwyn/North an evolving success Alwyn North consists of two platforms (NAA and NAB) linked by a 73 metre steel bridge, which sits 31 metres above sea level. The platforms stand in 126 metre water depth. Alwyn North A (NAA) is the drilling and accommodation platform, while Alwyn North B (NAB) houses the processing facilities. Safety was the most important of many considerations when separating the drilling and processing facilities. However, it also allowed the NAA four-legged, steel jacket to be installed and drilling operations to commence in 1986, a full year before the eight-legged NAB jacket was installed. In addition to providing crew access between the two platforms, the bridge also allows the untreated oil and gas to be transferred from production on NAA to the processing facilities on NAB. Once treated the hydrocarbons are exported by oil and gas pipelines. The bridge also carries all the common systems needed by both platforms, such as electrical power, fire and gas control, emergency shut-down system, process control and telecommunications. In the 1980s a particularly innovative approach was adopted on the Alwyn North project with the building of two platforms, putting safety considerations at the very heart of the development plan. Further safety measures included a thick blast wall protecting the high pressure module from the accommodation area. There are seven 58-man lifeboats on NAA and four 58-man lifeboats on NAB, more than enough to hold the maximum number of staff on board. Platform design ensured that the facilities could withstand the worst weather the North Sea could produce, including winds of more than 160km per hour and 30 metre waves. Further accommodation modules, added during 2009, provide 20 two-man cabins offering greater comfort and privacy for crew. There is a continuing and extensive programme of fabric maintenance and upgrades to the Alwyn North facilities, including produced water re-injection and gas-lift projects. These are aimed at ensuring maximum recovery of hydrocarbons and extending the life of the field. By ensuring the facilities remain in excellent condition and installing new technologies and systems, the Alwyn North Hub will remain a key facility for the development of further discoveries in the northern North Sea for decades to come.
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Alwyn/life offshore TOTAL E&P UK takes the health and welfare of its workforce very seriously and provides a wide range of recreational and other facilities to ensure the wellbeing of its entire offshore crew – whether directly employed or contracted. Accommodation is in 108 cabins for two or, if overriding operational reasons such as major maintenance work make it essential, three people. An additional accommodation unit consisting of 20 two-berth cabins are being installed in 2009. All cabins have their own shower and toilet facilities and satellite TV. All of the cabins are located within a safe refuge area, designed to withstand every type of emergency and giving time for the crew to reach the lifeboats in safety. The platform has a cinema, a gymnasium, access to computers for recreational and educational use, a quiet room, billiards, a well-stocked library and a music room including electronic keyboard and guitars. Public telephones are also available to ensure crew members have access to friends and family onshore. Helicopters arrive at the platform most days bringing offshore personnel their daily newspapers, as well as delivering a range of smaller packages. Most supplies arrive by boat from Aberdeen, a journey that takes about a day. In addition to the recreational facilities there is an excellent restaurant providing quality food and a sociable environment in which to relax.
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Nuggets/cluster The Nuggets Field lies around 20km South of Dunbar and was discovered between 1972 and 1991 in four separate, gas-bearing accumulations. N1 has two wells and the N2, N3 and N4 each have one. Although not very large fields in terms of recoverable reserves, production should continue for several years to come. The five isolated subsea wells that make up the Nuggets cluster are tied back to the Alwyn North field via subsea pipelines, but are controlled from the Dunbar platform. From Alwyn North, Nuggets gas is exported via the Frigg UK line to the St Fergus Gas Terminal for processing and distribution. Production from N1, N2 and N3 began in November 2001. N4, which is tied back via a 13km subsea pipeline to the N3 manifold, came onstream in October 2003. The N4 subsea tieback, at a total length of 67km to Alwyn North, is the longest in the UK sector of the North Sea.
Dunbar/Ellon and Grant fields The Dunbar Field, located approximately 22km to the South of Alwyn North was discovered in 1973 and came onstream in 1994. The Dunbar platform consists of a four-legged, steel jacket 167 metres high and located in a water depth of 145 metres. When the platform was being designed, safety was a primary consideration. There is a specially protected safe refuge area that contains the control room and has direct access to the two, 45-man freefall lifeboats. These are located as far as possible from the platform’s more hazardous areas and are protected by blast walls. A core crew of 30 usually mans the platform but an additional accommodation module was installed in 2002 allowing up to 60 berths for use during maintenance and other special operations. Development of the Dunbar field in 1994 made viable the development of satellite fields, Ellon, discovered in 1973, and Grant, discovered in 1977. Both fields, located around 9km from Dunbar were developed using subsea systems that link them to the Dunbar platform by flowlines and control umbilicals. Ellon began production in 1994 and Grant four years later. In 2004 the Forvie North field subsea pipeline to Alwyn was installed. This enabled the Grant production to be temporarily re-routed via the Forvie line during 2006, facilitating other subsea work relating to the Jura field development. Grant was then re-routed back through Dunbar prior to the Jura field start-up. In addition to working on new developments, TOTAL E&P UK has a comprehensive programme of facility maintenance and upgrading to ensure efficient operations and to maximise recovery from the fields, as well as ensure their availability for the development of future discoveries. This has included installation of an additional 58 man lifeboat to allow the personnel on board (POB) to rise to 120 during major works and the replacement of the Dunbar–Alwyn pipeline, a major task that was achieved with minimal disruption to production.
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Dunbar/innovation Whilst safety is always paramount, minimising cost has also been a factor in the development and continued production from Dunbar - so innovative solutions are constantly being considered. Two multiphase pumps were installed at a cost of £55 million and are an excellent example of successful innovative planning. Housed in a 650 tonne module on the Dunbar platform, they are the largest pumps of their kind in the world. As the field matures and well pressures drop, increasing quantities of water have to be pumped into the reservoir to maintain pressure. The pumped water improves production from Dunbar and Ellon by keeping the pressure of the oil, water and gas consistent, without the need for the three being separated for treatment. Each pump can accommodate around 40,000 barrels of liquid and 1.5 - 3.5 million cubic metres of gas per day. The oil and gas from Ellon arrives at Dunbar through 6� flowlines with all operations at the subsea wellheads controlled through two umbilicals. Gas from Dunbar and Ellon goes to Alwyn North for processing before joining the Frigg UK line and being sent to the St Fergus Gas Terminal. Oil is exported by pipeline to the Sullom Voe Terminal on Shetland.
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Forvie/North and JURA
Discovered in 2002, and with production starting in December 2004, the Forvie North field has shown that considerable reserves remain to be discovered in the Alwyn area and have a significant part to play in extending the field life of the Alwyn North facilities. The field is 100% owned by TOTAL E&P UK and is located 16km from Dunbar and 33km from Alwyn North. Water depth is 120 metres. Gas and condensate is produced from the Brent formation in an elongated fault panel by a single well. It is tied back to Alwyn North by a subsea line through the Forvie Manifold, which has been installed to cater for Forvie North and other satellite discoveries. Plateau production is in the order of 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. In 2006 TOTAL E&P UK discovered the Jura field, containing some 170 million barrels of oil equivalent. This very substantial, High Pressure/ High Temperature (HP/HT) discovery was brought on-stream through two wells only 17 months after discovery due to unique technological and commercial innovations, including a pipeline bundle assembly and the first subsea use of a High Integrity Process Protection System (HIPPS).
The main Jura towhead was the largest ever built for a towed bundle and the subsea control equipment was especially designed to cope with high pressure and wide temperature variations, while maintaining the highest industrial safety standards. Production plateau is in the order of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent. Jura has shown that large reserves can still be found in the Greater Alwyn Area and brought successfully onto production through innovative and resourceful teams, even under challenging HP/HT conditions.
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Otter field/delivers deep down
Otter is located 150km Northeast of Shetland and in a water depth of 182 metres. Although not actually produced through the Alwyn Area Hub, the Otter Field is important in being one of the most northerly and deepest subsea tiebacks in the North Sea. Oil was first produced there in October 2002, with a plateau production rate of around 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Production became possible by the bold use of dual Electric Submersible Pumps (ESP) in a subsea tieback, which at 21.5km is the longest in the UK to use ESP technology. The artificial lift provided by these pumps accelerates production and increases overall recovery of reserves. The field consists of a five-well development, three oil producers and two water injectors, and is tied-back to the Eider platform. Oil is then exported to the Sullom Voe Terminal on Shetland via the Brent system, while gas is exported to the St Fergus Gas terminal via the FLAGS pipeline system.
Otter is an excellent example of how stranded reserves can be unlocked by technological innovation combined with commercial efficiency. The Otter development not only adds new reserves but extends the field life of Eider.
Alwyn/the future In June 2008, shortly after production start up from Jura, TOTAL E&P UK announced yet another discovery in the Alwyn Area. The Islay field, wholly owned by TOTAL E&P UK, is located in Block 3/15 just 3km East of Jura and lies in 120 metres of water. The well was drilled to a depth of more than 4,000 metres and the Brent reservoir was successfully tested for gas at rates of 1.22 million cubic metres per day or 8,800 barrels of oil equivalent including condensates. Studies are under way to bring forward development of this field by tie back to the Alwyn facilities. Several other exploration targets have been identified in the Greater Alwyn Area and form part of the company strategy to maximise the value of existing production facilities by exploring for satellite accumulations.
ALWYN AREA TOTAL E&P UK Limited
100%
ALWYN NORTH DUNBAR ELLON GRANT FORVIE NORTH JURA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------OTTER Fina Exploration Ltd* Operator 58.476% Fina Petroleum Development Limited* 22.520% Dana Petroleum (North Sea) Limited 19.004% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Wholly owned subsidiaries of Total Upstream UK Limited
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Photography: François Lacour, Ken Taylor Design by Mearns & Gill, Aberdeen Copyright Š TOTAL E&P UK Limited 2009 All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the copyright holder. TOTAL E&P UK Limited Crawpeel Road, Altens, Aberdeen AB12 3FG Tel: +44 (0) 1224 297000 Fax: +44 (0) 1224 298999 www.total.com