Following the recently launched 30th Licensing Round offering North Sea offshore blocks in mature areas to interested oil firms, the UK Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has now expanded the offer with seven more blocks.
The seven additional blocks are: 110/5; 110/10; 110/16; 110/18; 113/24; 113/29; 113/30.
According to the OGA, the blocks were not initially on offer pending clarification of boundary lines between the Landward and Seaward licensing regimes.
As previously reported, OGA on July 25 launched the licensing round focusing on mature areas of the UKCS, offering at the time 813 blocks or part blocks on offer totalling an area of 114,426 km2 (28,275,280 acres).
Blocks are on offer in the Southern, Central and Northern North Sea, the West of Shetland and East Irish Sea, featuring a large inventory of prospects and undeveloped discoveries.
The round will make use of the new Innovate Licence, developed by the OGA in collaboration with industry to create flexible, variable licenses, OGA said. To support companies in their technical assessments, the OGA recently released around 140 datapacks on undeveloped discoveries which are included in the latest round offering.
Of these, around 60 contain ‘technical montages’ which provide the discovery’s history, static and dynamic information and digital subsurface data.
In the round, a number of fields that have ceased production are available, with OGA hoping that advances in technology may make these fields viable for redevelopment.
OGA said it was encouraging companies to take a fresh look at large areas of acreage, some of which has not been available since 1965, and make best use of the recently released information and new data packs to inform their applications. The 30th Round is open until November 21, 2017. Decisions are expected to be made in Q2 2018.
Offshore Energy Today Staff