Bad weather has delayed first oil from Premier Oil's Solan project, in the West of Shetland area, until January, the firm announced on 23 December.
Premier Oil stated in its operations announcement that further progress has been made on the commissioning of the offshore installation systems for the project. And The company said that while tanker trials have been successfully completed and commissioning work has continued using the Superior flotel, the timing of first oil is dependent on weather conditions.
"After a favorable weather period for much of September and October, the West of Shetland area experienced an unprecedented number of different storm fronts during November and early December," Premier said on 23 December. "This resulted in poor bridge connectivity between the flotel and the Solan platform and a number of lost days. We are continuing to reduce the number of hours required to reach first oil, however we now expect first oil to be in January."
Just as recently as last month, Premier seemed certain that Solan would be online by year's end.
Solan was discovered in the 1990s, in Block 205/26a of the UK Continental Shelf, in 135m water depth, but remained inactive until Chrysaor took it over as part of the UK Government’s Fallow Field initiative and drilled appraisal wells in 2008 and 2009. Premier Oil then farmed-in in 2011.
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