Schiehallion oilfield

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Schiehallion oil field is deepwater oil development approximately 175 kilometres (110 mi) west of the Shetland Islands. It is developed combined with the Loyal oil field. Schiehallion field and Loyal field together with Foinaven and Clair fields form the area generally termed as the West of Shetland.

1 Field description
2 Production
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Field description

Schiehallion field was discovered in 1993.^[1] It is located in blocks 204/20 and 204/25 of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) in a water depth of 350 - 450m. Recoverable oil reserves of Schiehallion are estimated to be between 450 and 600 million barrels.

[edit] Production

The Schiehallion and Loyal fields are operated by BP Exploration. The Schiehallion field partners are BP, Shell, Amerada Hess, Murphy Oil, StatoilHydro and OMV. The Loyal field partners are BP and Shell.

The development of the Schiehallion and Loyal combined fields was sanctioned in April 1996 and the oil production in started in July 1998. As of today, there are 42 wells in total in five clusters with peak production rates of around 190,000 barrel of oil per day.

Oil is produced by subsea wells via a manifold, which passes through rigid flowlines and then flexible risers into a floating production, storage and offloading system (FPSO). The Schiehallion FPSO vessel, designed and built at Harland and Wolff, is 246m long, with a dead-weight of 154,000 tonnes.^[1] It has processing capacity 200,000 barrels of oil a day and storing capacity 900,000 barrels of oil. Oil is exported primarily to the Sullom Voe Terminal.

The Schiehallion FPSO is in a poor condition after a decade working in the harsh North Atlantic. It is expected that the current FPSO will be returned to dry dock for total refurbishment or a new FPSO will be build to replace the current FPSO within the next year.^{[citation needed]}

Produced natural gas is used to power the vessel. Rest of gas is exported through the West of Shetland pipeline to the Sullom Voe Terminal. Some of the exported gas is used as fuel in the Fortum operated Sullom Voe power station. The remainder is enriched with LPGs and exported to the Magnus platform for enhanced oil recovery in Magnus field.