Talk:North Sea oil

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Does anyone have any knowledge on why North Sea oil is better than Gulf oil? Joe (14, Cheltenham, UK)

It has a lower sulphur content (and so is called "sweeter"). It is also "lighter" than much Gulf oil (meaning a higher proportion of petrol versus say bitumen) but there is quite a wide variation in Gulf oils and some of them are fairly light and fairly sweet.--BozMo talk 10:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, we're talking about eaverages here, but there are very high quality crudes in the Gulf (like Saudi Extra Light), and there are heavy crudes in the North Sea (but they are not that many). North sea oil is "better" from a political point of view (security of supply), it is controlled by polically stable countries, and not submitted to OPEP quotas. Also, it is close from large consuming countries (UK, Germany, France, Benelux, Scandinavia) , so transport costs are small. But this is not that important, the cost of transport is a small part of the total price of oil. --86.73.20.77 23:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Because hurricanes don't hit the platforms?

1 - The off shore facilities are known as platforms, not rigs

   (some of them are rigs,.. at least those of us who work on them call them that, sometimes even when      they are platforms. platforms tend to be set into the sea bed permanently, most other kinds are mobile)

2 - They don't float, but are attached to the ocean floor.

   (they do.. see above. At least some do, these are called semi-submesible, other mobile types are jack ups and submersible)


3 - There should be a list of them here on Wikipedia

   (if there is, you might want to take a look at it)

Contents

[edit] North Sea Oil Map

The map here appears to largely contain items owned/operated by Shell. There are many fields and pipelines missing. It also appears to mostly show just the UK Sector of the North Sea - there are no Norwegian and other fields.

[edit] West Of Shetland

Definite need for adding information about the developments WoS. Comments on the above :

  • "light sweet crude" - BozMo is entirely correct. The proximity of the oil to a major market and political stability have always been non-trivial considerations too.
  • "hurricanes don't hit the platforms" - obviously written by someone who's never had to crawl across the helideck, clinging onto a safety rope and dragging one's baggage to get to work. More to the point is, North Sea platforms aren't evacuated during hurricane-force storms.
  • Some platforms float, some are fixed, some float and are fixed (Hutton TLP). Not a very useful distinction.
  • There is a list of fields. A list of drilling rigs (MODUs - Mobile Offshore Drilling Units) wouldn't be much use, as significant numbers move in and out of the area every year. (Some won't leave because they'd never be allowed back without extensive re-fit.)

Oh well, back to working on Ireland.

A Karley 08:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oil Fields Links

From a quick survey of the oil fields hyperlinks, it appears that tey are quite random. Forties - points to a page about 1940 decade Buchanan - points to the page about the region, not the field..

I think the links should be removed or pointed to stub pages on fields themselves. Alexander

[edit] Title of the article

This article is named "North Sea oil", but it also about gas fields and gas production. Maybe it would be more correct to rename this article to "North Sea oil and gas"?Beagel 16:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. - 81.178.209.89 19:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of pipelines

I think it would be useful also to create a list of North Sea oil and gas pipelines connecting fields with inland systems.Beagel 16:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links to fields

It seems sensible to have a standard form of article name for a field, eg Harding oilfield, Everest gasfield. In preparation for creating a page on Amethyst, I changed the other longer link to a simple Amethyst gasfield. Glom 09:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Topics on Scotland?

Funny how this article is listed as such given that nearly half the resources lay in English waters. Perhaps all part of the Scottish Nationalist agenda in claiming 100% of the gas and oil as Scottish, so they can complain about the English stealing the revenues..... 86.17.211.191 00:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Um... yes, that is odd. The "Topics on Scotland" tab should be removed, maybe replaced with "Topics on the United Kingdom".

WikiReaderer 19:12, 28 October 2007 (UTC)