WEST of Shetland-focused Hurricane Energy has praised the new North Sea oil and gas industry regulator for adopting a flexible approach to licensing formalities on its territory, which it said would increase the chances of the firm making progress.
The Surrey-based company said it was pleased to announce that the UK Oil and Gas Authority has allowed it to subdivide a licence West of Shetland into four sub areas, each of which contains a discovery or a prospect.
The OGA has also granted a two year extension on the requirement that Hurricane drill a well on the Lincoln prospect on one of the sub areas, until 31 December 2019.
Hurricane’s chief executive Robert Trice said the subdividing of the licence was an important step for the company, which would make it possible for other firms to invest in individual assets rather than having to buy into the whole licence.
In September the company made progress on the adjoining licence when the UK Oil and Gas Authority granted the Lancaster find on the acreage oil field status.
Mr Trice said then that the authority’s decision was an important step in progressing to first oil from Lancaster, which is estimated to contain 207 million barrels of oil.
The company is preparing a programme of appraisal drilling on Lancaster, which will help it determine if the field can be developed profitably.
Hurricane focuses on fractured basement reservoirs that lie beneath the sandstone level, which most North Sea exploration activity has targeted.
Hurricane expects to be able to produce from such basement reservoirs by tapping into natural fractures in the rock through which oil could flow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here