Total is focusing its attention on closer evaluation of the deepwater Tormore field’s oil rim west of Shetland this year.

The find was made while undertaking development drilling at the Laggan and Tormore gas development last year.

News of the oil discovery emerged late last year when Total E&P disclosed at a contractors’ conference in Aberdeen that it had made the find (see DI, 16 December 2013, page 2), and it confirmed conceptual studies had been launched in the second quarter of that year.

Tormore was found on the edge of the UK Continental Shelf and lies in a water depth which descends from an average of 120 m to 600 m (393–2,000 ft).

Last June Total selected Aberdeen-based EPC Offshore for a six-month £260,000 project management services contract covering the Edradour gas and condensate field. Edradour was discovered in block 206/4 west of Shetland, and it is being tied in to Total’s US $3.3 billion (£2.10 billion) Laggan-Tormore gas development, which involves tying deepwater subsea wells into a long-distance gas export system carrying production to a new process plant in the Shetland Islands.

First production from Laggan and Tormore, which are together estimated to contain 1 Tcf of gas, is scheduled for mid-2014, via two 143 km 18-inch flowlines designed to carry a peak gas rate of 500 MMcf/d.

This line, regarded as a key piece of infrastructure to unlock discoveries in the region, is also earmarked to carry gas from the Rosebank and Clair developments also west of Shetland.

First gas from Edradour is already being targeted for 2016 but the Tormore oil rim, thought to contain around 100 MMbbl, could lag behind that.

Offshore