Maersk Oil may shut down production at Denmark’s largest gas field, should an economically viable solution for continued operations not be reached by this year.
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Platforms at Tyra East. Image from Maersk. |
Tyra East and Tyra West may cease production on 1 October 2018, under European Union (EU) regulation requirements, which state that a decision to end production must be notified to the market in a timely manner.
The Tyra field is located some 225km west of Esbjerg in the North Sea, with production at the field starting in 1984. The field’s facilities are the processing and export center for all gas produced by the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC), and more than 90% of Denmark’s gas production is processed through the facilities.
“Together with our partners in DUC we are now evaluating long term economically viable solutions for recovery of the remaining resources. As part of this, we will consider the terms under which a rebuild of the facilities could take place. The basis for a decision needs to be in place by the end of 2016 to ensure future production from the field,” Martin Rune Pedersen, Maersk Oil Denmark managing director said.
Significant gas resources from Tyra remain to be extracted. Over the last 15 years DUC has spent more than US$152 million (DKK 1 billion) on reinforcing the structures to prolong production, Maersk said.
Tyra East and Tyra West serve as the hub for a number of smaller facilities in the Tyra field, which will be part of the evaluation, Maersk Oil said. This includes the neighboring unmanned facility, Tyra Southeast, which was extended in 2015.
The Tyra facilities are approaching the end of their operational life due to a combination of more than 30 years of production and subsidence of the underground chalk reservoir, reducing the gap between the facilities and the sea.
The Tyra field is operated by Maersk Oil on behalf of the DUC, a partnership between A.P. Moller – Maersk (31.2%), Shell (36.8%), Nordsøfonden (20%) and Chevron (12%).
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