Jacket installation operations on Premier Oil’s Solan oil field development west of Shetland are due to start.
The four-legged steel jacket for the field, in Block 205/26a, in 135m water depth, left the construction yard at Methil, Fife, on August 18, and sailed this week past Orkney, on its journey to the field. Topsides commissioning is also underway.
Meanhile, Heerema Marine Contractors' semisubmersible crane vessel Thialf is currently on location for the installation of the Solan subsea tank, which had been shipped from Dubai to Lerwick, Shetland, last earlier this month.
Image: The Solan jacket, on a barge towed by the Toisa Envoy, passing north west Orkney. Photo by Magnus Budge.
Premier said first oil from the development, scheduled for later this year, would now be dependent on completion of the offshore installation activities and commissioning activities.
The jacket and topsides were being fabricated at Burntisland Fabrications' yards in Methil and Arnish, Scotland.
The field is in license P164, which Premier operates with partner Chrysaor. Solan is a Jurassic field and is expected to produce about 40MMbbl over its lifetime. Solan was discovered in the 1990s, 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 farmed-in in 2011.
Premier Oil also said front end engineering and design on the Bream (North Sea) and Sea Lion (Falkland Islands) fields were progressing well.
Premier says it has a number of “play-opening” wells planned for the next 12 months, including Myrhauk, offshore Norway, and Isobel Deep, in the Falkland Islands.
The firm’s full year production guidance is 58-63,000boe/d.
Solan's subsea storage tank arrived in Shetland late last month. Read more: Solan tank arrives in Lerwick, Shetland.
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