The Buzzard Oil Field is an oil field located in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

Blocks 19/10, 19/5a, 20/6 and 20/1s. It was discovered in 2001 by PanCanadian, and developed initially by PanCanadian's successor

EnCana Ovintiv Inc. is a hydrocarbon exploration and production company organized in Delaware and headquartered in Denver, United States. It was founded and headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, under its previous name Encana. It was the largest energy c ...

and then by

Nexen CNOOC Petroleum North America ULC, formerly known as Nexen, is a Canadian oil and gas company based in Calgary, Alberta. Originally the Canadian subsidiary of US-based Occidental Petroleum (known as Canadian Occidental Petroleum or CanOxy), it ...

. The oil field was initially operated and owned by

which is now a subsidiary of China's

CNOOC China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC Group ( Chinese: 中国海洋石油总公司 Pinyin: ''Zhōngguó Háiyáng Shíyóu Zǒnggōngsī''), is one of the largest national oil companies in China, and the third-largest national oil ...

The field

The total

proven reserves Proven reserves (also called measured reserves, 1P, and reserves) is a measure of fossil fuel energy reserves, such as oil reserves, natural gas reserves, and coal reserves. It is defined as the " antity of energy sources estimated with reasona ...

of the Buzzard oil field are , and production will be centered on per day. The Buzzard reservoir has a low gas/oil ratio and requires pressure maintenance through water injection. Buzzard’s oil consists of medium sour crude: 32.6° API, 1.4% sulphur.

Infrastructure

The Buzzard field development comprises four bridge-linked steel platforms: the wellhead facilities (W) for up to 27 production wells, production facilities (P), a platform supporting accommodation and utilities (UQ) and an oil stripper platform (PS).

Processing

The oil processing facilities comprise a 3-phase (oil/vapour/water) Production Separator. Oil from the separator flows to the 3-phase Second Stage Separartor. Oil from the latter is 'spiked' with

Natural Gas Liquids Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natur ...

(NGL) from the gas dewpointing plant, then injected with a hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) scavenger chemical prior to metering and export.Process Sketch Oil and Gas export (2006) Produced water from the Second Stage Separator is recycled to the Production Separator, and from there to the produced water treatment facilities using

hydrocyclone Hydrocyclones are a type of cyclonic separators that separate product phases mainly on basis of differences in gravity with aqueous solutions as the primary feed fluid. As opposed to dry or dust cyclones, which separate solids from gasses, hydrocy ...

s before overboard disposal. Vapour from the two Separators is compressed in an Offgas Compressor and a LP/HP compressor. Compressed gas passes through a Mercury Removal Bed and an Acid Gas Removal system, which uses a

counter-current flow Countercurrent exchange is a mechanism occurring in nature and mimicked in industry and engineering, in which there is a crossover of some property, usually heat or some chemical, between two flowing bodies flowing in opposite directions to each ...

amine In chemistry, amines (, ) are compounds and functional groups that contain a basic nitrogen atom with a lone pair. Amines are formally derivatives of ammonia (), wherein one or more hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element wi ...

solvent, and then through a Mercaptans Removal Bed. The gas is dehydrated in a gas dehydration system which uses a counter-current flow of

glycol A diol is a chemical compound containing two hydroxyl groups ( groups). An aliphatic diol is also called a glycol. This pairing of functional groups is pervasive, and many subcategories have been identified. The most common industrial diol is e ...

. After dehydration the gas is cooled and passes through a Joule-Thomson valve to reduce its pressure and hence its temperature to remove liquids and achieve a gas hydrocarbon

dewpoint The dew point is the temperature to which air must be cooled to become saturated with water vapor, assuming constant air pressure and water content. When cooled below the dew point, moisture capacity is reduced and airborne water vapor will co ...

. Natural Gas Liquids are separated and co-mingled with the export oil stream. Gas is compressed in the HP Compressors, some is used as

gas lift Gas lift or bubble pumps use the artificial lift technique of raising a fluid such as water or oil by introducing bubbles of compressed air, water vapor or other vaporous bubbles into the outlet tube. This has the effect of reducing the hydrosta ...

on the production wells, some as fuel gas, and the remainder is exported.

Export

Oil is exported from Buzzard via an 18 inch pipeline from the Buzzard processing platform to the nearest point in the Forties to Cruden Bay System, approximately 28 km away. Oil flows to Cruden Bay and then onto the Kinneil Terminal. First oil was produced in December 2006. Gas is exported via a pipeline from Buzzard to the Captain ‘T’ point on the UK

Frigg Frigg (; Old Norse: ) is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wet ...

pipeline 29 km away. From there the gas is transported to the

St Fergus St Fergus is a village in the Buchan area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. St Fergus lies from the North Sea coast and north-west of Peterhead. The Parish of St Fergus includes the remains of Inverugie Castle and Ravenscraig Castle. The church in ...

Gas Terminal. Fuel gas can also be imported onto Buzzard from the Frigg pipeline.

Production History

Buzzard was the largest discovery in UK waters for 20 years when it was found in 2001 and went on to become the largest-producing field in the region after starting up in 2007. Once at a peak of more than of

oil equivalent The tonne of oil equivalent (toe) is a unit of energy defined as the amount of energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil. It is approximately 42 gigajoules or 11.630 megawatt-hours, although as different crude oils have different calorifi ...

per day in 2009, production has decreased to of oil equivalent per day as of May 2020, according to Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) figures. Buzzard was temporarily shutdown twice in late 2019 for repairs to topside pipework.

Expansion

Buzzard Phase 2 is a bid to go after additional reserves to the north of the main field with a subsea development tied-back to it, with expected peak production of of oil equivalent per day. The first stage includes installation of a subsea manifold, a new processing module for the platform and drilling of four production wells. First oil from Buzzard Phase 2 was expected in late 2020 but as of August 2020, CNOOC postponed the project to 2021. Chrysaor stated that the drilling results for Buzzard Phase 2 was "towards the lower end of expectations," with the project now expected to come on stream in December 2021. Buzzard Phase 2 achieved first oil in the fourth quarter of 2021. Buzzard Phase 2 is expected to reach its peak production in 2022, adding approximately 12,000 boe/d gross (approximately 3,500 boe/d net to Suncor) to existing Buzzard production.

References

{{coord missing, North Sea North Sea oil fields Oil fields of the United Kingdom