In 1977, the Nashua Telegraph of New Hampshire ran a lengthy article on the recently opened oil fields off the coast of the Shetland Islands. The text chronicled the rapid changes that began to transform the remote North Sea Island and pondered how the fact that the Shetlands had “become part of the rat race” would impact the islands, their population, and the environment long-term. Since then the Shetlands have materialistically benefitted from the oil and gas industry like few other regions in Europe. Infrastructure, amenities, health programs, and well-paying jobs are now accessible to communities that had previously fought dire poverty and a population exodus that was threatening to turn the northernmost part of Britain into an abandoned wasteland.
But then the new millennium came, and with it decreasing oil price, higher taxes, and a slow-down in production. Well output in the North Sea had reached its peak and predictions for the future were dire. Forecasters predicted that most high-producing fields were thoroughly exploited and that other, potentially lucrative, fields too challenging to effectively develop. As a result daily production in the fields around Shetland had dropped by 2010 to less than fifty percent compared to its peak in the late 1990s. Oil and gas production was believed to have little future.
But then, things began to change. The American oil and natural gas boom helped to usher in advanced technologies and new revenue streams that could also help revive the aging fields in the North Sea. Paired with rising oil and gas prices and the prospect of renewed tax incentives the future for continued oil and gas production in the waters north of Great Britain looks now better by the week, prompting experts to even forecast a complete reversal of the production decline of the last years.
Typical examples of the areas revival are the Darwin and the Solan fields. The Darwin field was originally explored by Amoco as early as 1975 but was never fully developed as the area was deemed too difficult to exploit and thereby too economically unpredictable to warrant the necessary investment. New estimates now suggest that the field might yield up to 500 million barrels and first oil production from the new discoveries is expected in 2018. Similarly, the Solan field was originally discovered by Hess in the early 1990s but never developed beyond the exploration stage. Now, Premier Oil and Chrysaor have acquired the field, secured a production license and are expected to begin extracting oil from the 135m deep-water well at a rate of approximately 24,000 barrels per day by 2014.
One of the biggest and most exciting projects in the region around the Shetland Islands, however, are Statoil’s Mariner field, a heavy oil field north of the Shetlands predicted to produce up to 55,000 barrels per day staring in 2017, and the joined BP-Shell project in the extensive Clair field off Shetland’s west coast. BP, Shell and their partners are expected to invest more than $ 8 billion in the project beginning with the drilling of five test wells. These projects are only a handful of the many similar projects that are currently springing up all around the North Sea. They testify to the renewed optimism of the industry and the shared belief among investors and producers that the North Sea oil is far from spilled.
EVS Translations provides a full range of oil and gas translation services like drilling programmes and expedition reports, well policies, geophysical and geotechnical logs, technical and CAD drawings, operation and maintenance manuals, presentations and minutes of committee meetings.
