Shell has taken a final investment decision (FID) on the Victory gas field in the UK North Sea, approximately 47 km north-west of the Shetland Islands.
Once onstream, the field will help to maintain domestically produced gas for Britain’s homes, businesses and power generation.
The development will feature a single subsea well which will be tied back to existing infrastructure of the Greater Laggan Area system, using a new 16 km pipeline.
“The UK North Sea is a critical national resource, providing a steady supply of the fuels people rely on today and strengthening the country’s energy security and resilience. Continued investment is required to sustain domestic production, which is declining faster than the UK’s demand for oil and gas,” said Simon Roddy, Shell UK Upstream Senior Vice President.
According to the regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority, only 38% of the UK’s 2022 gas consumption was domestically produced – the rest was imported.
It is anticipated the Victory field will come online in the middle of the decade and at its peak, produce enough gas to heat almost 900,000 homes per year.
This is around 150 million standard cubic feet per day of gas (approximately 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day). Most of the field’s recoverable gas is expected to be extracted by the end of the decade, according to Shell.
Victory’s gas will be processed onshore at the Shetland Gas Plant before being piped to the UK mainland to enter the National Grid at St Fergus, where Shell UK is also helping develop the Acorn Carbon Capture and Storage project.
Because Victory will tie back to existing infrastructure, its operational emissions are expected to be lower than for many current UK North Sea gas fields.