BP's Vorlich Project Approved

BP said September 27 its Vorlich oil and gas field development plan has been approved by UK upstream regulator, the Oil & Gas Authority.

The central North Sea field is expected to produce 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day at peak, gross, shortly after its expected start-up in 2020, and to target 30mn boe.  The low-cost £200mn ($263mn) project is part of a programme of North Sea subsea tie-back developments that seek to access important new production from fields near to established producing infrastructure.

BP told NGW in April that "Vorlich is essentially oil production in the early stages but as the reservoir pressure depletes it becomes a gas producer. Capacity at most is about 67mn ft³/day."

A two-well development 240 km east of Aberdeen, Vorlich will be tied back to the Ithaca Energy-operated FPF-1 floating production facility on Greater Stella which started producing in February 2018. Ithaca has a 34% stake in Vorlich, BP 66%. The FPF-1 has capacity to produce oil and gas and at least one of Ithaca's Greater Stella fields is gas. Since April 2017, Ithaca has been controlled by Israel's Delek.

In April, BP said it would develop Vorlich and Alligin, another tieback. The 50-50% BP and Shell owned Alligin is west of Shetland which will be tied back to BP’s Glen Lyon floating production ship (FPSO). “While not on the same scale as our huge Quad 204 and Clair Ridge projects, Vorlich… demonstrates BP’s commitment to the North Sea,” said BP’s regional president for the area, Ariel Flores.

Upstream industry association Oil & Gas UK’s policy director Mike Tholen concurred, saying news of Vorlich’s approval will “further bolster confidence in the region. BP’s focus on efficiency, innovation and collaboration confirms its commitment to maximising recovery from the basin” adding that the focus must “remain on bringing more major projects to delivery” rather than risk infrastructure go idle.

Map of Vorlich location in UK central North Sea (Credit: BP)