Recent discovery of Oil for the UK Oil & Gas Industry
A new oil discovery is designed to shatter what we knew about oil around the UK region. Azinor Catalyst said that they found oil at the 9/14a-17b exploration. This is in the UK North Sea and it really comes with some very impressive and unique benefits to the table. The initial exploration went very well, it was drilled by a semi=submersible drilling rig from the Transocean leader. What they found was water bearing sands and high quality oil.
The interesting thing is that the license partners continued to drill on the side track in order to see if the entire region has potential. What they found is a 20m interval full of high quality, oil bearing sands. It’s a good thing that all of this is located near existing infrastructure. So they don’t have to invest a lot of money anyway. However, the amount of resources found out there include anywhere from 15 to 50 million barrels. This is just a preliminary analysis, it can end up being a lot more.
Catalyst, the well operator with 25% interest said that more analysis is needed. They need to understand the exact quality of that oil. There are some things that attract Azinor Catalyst, among others. The proximity to current infrastructures is one of them. You also have the shallow depth, which doesn’t require a ton of investment, but which can give a whole lot of potential, and that’s always nice to see.
At this particular time Azinor Catalyst is trying to pug and abandon the Agar-Plantain well. They did make a great discovery in 2014, and seeing this one they are bound to deliver quite the value and experience in the end.
Although they are just in the planning phase yet, Azinor Catalyst are very excited with the possibilities of this new location. It’s a success for them, and the company already said that they will continue investing in the UK wells as much as they can. It’s a very good and attractive region for them. And it does seem to have a lot of potential too, which is very nice to begin with.
If everything will go right, Azinor Catalyst has the potential to further expand in the UK and create an even richer infrastructure. It’s certainly going to require quite a lot of investment, but it’s something that might eventually pay off a whole lot more than you might imagine.
Also, OGA is supporting any activity and they are also bringing the Eocene injectite play here. That means it’s a great and successful opportunity and one that has the potential to pay off immensely if everything goes properly. With that in mind, even the latest quantitative and broadband seismic techniques are great on the Azinor Catalyst side, so their project can end up working very well. They are still in the planning and testing phase, but this new location might be harnessed very soon, most likely in 2019 or 2020.
Sources:
Azinor Catalyst makes oil discovery at Agar-Plantain prospect in UK by Offshore Technology
New North Sea discovery hailed by Oil and Gas UK by BBC UK