BP And Co-Venturers Approve Development Of Kinnoull Field In North Sea

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On behalf of its co-venturers BP announced Tuesday an agreement to invest up to £700 million to progress a project to develop the Kinnoull reservoir in the central North Sea.

Kinnoull is the largest of three reservoirs that are being developed as part of the Andrew Area developments project, and contains 45 million barrels of oil equivalent. The reservoir will be connected to BP’s Andrew platform and enable production to be extended to 2020 and beyond.

Production from Kinnoull is forecast to peak at 45,000 barrels per day and be exported via the existing Forties pipeline system to Kinneil and the CATS pipeline system to Teesside.

Trevor Garlick, Regional President for BP’s North Sea business said “The Kinnoull project is a further demonstration of BP’s vision to sustain a material and high quality business in the North Sea region. It is also a showcase for the outstanding subsea expertise that exists within the UK. At its peak the project will create employment for over 1,000 people in the UK.”

Charles Hendry, Minister of state for Energy and Climate Change said: “I am pleased to see that BP is taking forward the development of the Kinnoull field. With around 90% of the development involving UK firms, this is a real big win for our domestic supply chain and shows that the thriving North Sea oil and gas sector continues to deliver economic benefit. I hope major global players continue to harness the expertise of UK companies as new developments come forward”.

In order to access the new reservoir, the project will install a new subsea system and caisson onto the Andrew platform. The backbone of the subsea system will be 4 subsea bundles with a total length of 28 km – the longest bundle system in the world – which will carry the fluids to the Andrew platform for processing. The bundle system is being fabricated by Subsea 7 at its facility in Wick, Scotland.

To accept the new Kinnoull production fluids, and to facilitate the production from the Lower Cretaceous reservoir below the Andrew reservoir, the Andrew platform will undergo major modifications including the addition of a 750 ton process module. Construction will be completed over 2 years, with the flotel Borgholm Dolphin on location throughout. The Andrew platform is expected to be shut down for 18 months during this campaign during which time operational work will also be undertaken to maintain the efficiency and integrity of the existing Andrew platform facilities.

The new facilities are scheduled to commence production in 2013.

BP owns 77.06%, with other interests as follows: Eni (16.67%); Summit (6.27%);

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