UK offers 37 licences in offshore round

Thirty companies, some of them in groups, have received offers for the award of 37 licences covering 141 blocks in the UK’s 31st offshore licensing round.

The frontier areas are in the Faroe-Shetland basin, Moray Firth, East Irish Sea, East Shetland Platform, Mid North Sea High, and the English Channel.

The Oil and Gas Authority received 36 applications covering 164 blocks.

It offered 15 licences in the Central North Sea (North), 11 in the Northern North Sea and West of Shetland, four each in the Southern North Sea and Irish Sea, and three in the Central North Sea (South).

Bidding was based on work programmes.

Licence administrators and the number of licence offers they received are Ardent Oil (1), BP Exploration (1), Burgate Exploration & Production (2), Chevron North Sea (2), Chrysaor North Sea (3), Corallian Energy (5), Cycle Petroleum (4), Draupner Energy (2), Equinor UK (4), Faroe Petroleum (1), Geoscience Services (1), Jetex Petroleum (2), Nautical Petroleum (1), Petrogas E&P (1), Pharis Energy (1), Shell UK (1), Spirit Energy (2), Stelinmatvic Industries (1), Total E&P (1), and United Oil & Gas (1).

Work programmes for two of the licences go straight to field development planning: Chrysaor’s Block 13/22c in the Central North Sea (North) area, and Shell UK’s Block 211/13c (partial) in the Northern North Sea.

Source: Oil & Gas Journal