UK-based oil and gas company Siccar Point Energy has started drilling at its Lyon prospect located north of the Shetland Islands, using a Diamond Offshore-owned semi-submersible rig.
The Lyon prospect is located in license P.1854, approximately 125 kilometers northwest of the Shetland Islands. The water depth at the site is about 1,444 meters. The prospect is thought to contain 1-3 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.
According to information on UK Oil and Gas Authority’s website, the Lyon well was spud last Thursday, May 16, 2019. Siccar Point has confirmed that the well has been spudded.
The Lyon well is part of Siccar Point’s 2019 drilling campaign, which also included the Blackrock exploration well 204/5b-2 in the West of Shetland.
Siccar Point has already completed the Blackrock well and found ‘encouraging’ results. The well was drilled using the Ocean GreatWhite rig which then moved on to the Lyon prospect.
Siccar Point is the operator of the license P.1854 with a 33.34% interest and its partner – following a farm-out back in late 2017 – is Ineos with the 66.66% interest.
The Lyon well was initially supposed to be drilled in 2018 using the West Hercules rig but Siccar Point delayed the well in September last year to mitigate the risk of weather downtime.
Siccar Point claims that, if Lyon is successful, it would be large enough to form a new gas-hub development similar to the Total-operated Laggan-Tormore fields which have been developed with subsea infrastructure with pipelines to the Shetland Gas Plant. Existing smaller gas discoveries in the Lyon area such as Tobermory, Bunnehaven and Cragganmore would all be suitable tie-back candidates into the Lyon gas hub.
The Ocean GreatWhite – the world’s largest semi-submersible drilling rig – weighs in at 60,800 tonnes and is a 6th generation harsh environment drilling rig capable of drilling down to 10,000 meters in 3,000 meters of water. The rig’s contract with Siccar Point is set to expire in late July after which it will work for an unnamed operator on a well-based contract until mid-October 2019.
It is worth mentioning that Diamond recently contracted Seacroft to implement its ‘SafeZone 500’ marine vessel control and management program on its three UK-based rigs the Ocean Endeavour, Ocean Valiant, and Ocean GreatWhite.
Offshore Energy Today Staff
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