Cormorant North

Cormorant North Oil Project Profile

Location and Geography

• The Cormorant North oil field is located in the East Shetland Basin of the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS), approximately 161 kilometres (100 miles) northeast of Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland. It is situated in licence block 211/21a.

Discovery and History

• The Cormorant Oil Field, including the North segment, was discovered in September 1972 at a water depth of 150 metres (490 feet). The oil reservoir itself is at a depth of 2,895 metres (9,498 feet).
• Government approval for the development of Cormorant North and South was given in 1979. Production from the Cormorant Alpha platform, which serves the South Cormorant field but is also connected to the North, began in December 1979.

Operator and Ownership

• Originally operated by Shell and Esso, the field was acquired by TAQA (Abu Dhabi National Energy Company) in July 2008, when TAQA purchased a 100% stake in Cormorant North and South from Shell and Esso.

Infrastructure

• North Cormorant Platform: This is a fixed installation with a steel jacket structure, located at the centre of the North Cormorant field at a water depth of 161 metres. The platform has been operational since July 1985 and has two production trains for the separation of oil, gas, and water. It has a design capacity to process around 180,000 barrels of crude per day.
• Underwater Manifold Centre (UMC): Located on the South Cormorant field but connected to the North Cormorant operations, the UMC acts as a template structure for nine wells and pipelines back to the Cormorant Alpha platform. It started operations in mid-1983.

Production and Processing

• The North Cormorant platform facilitates production from the North Cormorant and Cormorant East fields. Oil from these fields, along with imports from other fields like Otter, is processed at the North Cormorant platform. The processed oil is then sent to the Cormorant Alpha platform and transported via the Brent System Oil Pipeline to the Sullom Voe Terminal (SVT) for sale.
• Associated gas is exported through the Western Leg and the Far North Liquids and Associated Gas System (FLAGS) Pipeline to the St. Fergus terminal.

Geology

• The oil reservoirs in the Cormorant North field are primarily composed of Middle Jurassic (Brent) sands, specifically the Tarbert Formation of the Jurassic Brent Group.

Production Volume and Reserves

• The initial production rates and total reserves for the Cormorant North field specifically are not detailed separately, but the entire Cormorant field complex has produced significant volumes. For example, the South Cormorant fields have produced 189 million barrels of oil from an estimated 372 million barrels of oil in place (STOIIP).
• The Cormorant East field, which is closely related and processed through the same infrastructure, started production in January 2013 with an initial rate of approximately 5,500 barrels of oil per day.

Decommissioning

• A Cessation of Production (CoP) application for North Cormorant is currently under preparation and will be submitted to the Oil & Gas Authority. The current plan suggests that production from the North Cormorant and Cormorant East fields will cease around the same time, with decommissioning activities to follow. The topsides of the North Cormorant platform are proposed to be completely removed for reuse, recycling, or appropriate disposal.

Contractors and Partners

• The North Cormorant platform was fabricated by Redpath de Groot Caledonian and Union Industrielle et d'Enterprise (UIE).
• For the Cormorant East field, which is operated in conjunction with North Cormorant, TAQA holds a 60% interest. Other partners include Dana Petroleum (20%), Antrim Energy (8.4%), First Oil (7.6%), and Bridge Energy (4%).

In summary, the Cormorant North oil project is a significant part of the broader Cormorant oil field complex, operated by TAQA and utilizing a combination of fixed platforms and subsea infrastructure to produce oil from the Jurassic Brent Group sands in the East Shetland Basin.