Foinaven oilfield is deepwater oil development approximately west of the

Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

. Together with

Schiehallion Schiehallion (; gd, Sìth Chailleann, ) is a prominent cone-shaped mountain in the Breadalbane region of the Scottish Highlands, in the county of Perthshire. It rises to and is classed as a Munro. Schiehallion has a rich botanical life, inte ...

, Loyal, Solan, Clair and Lancaster fields it forms the area generally termed as the West of Shetland.

Field description

Foinaven oil field was discovered in October 1990. It is located at a water depth of , and is the first development made beyond the

United Kingdom Continental Shelf The UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) is the region of waters surrounding the United Kingdom, in which the country has mineral rights. The UK continental shelf includes parts of the North Sea, the North Atlantic, the Irish Sea and the English Channel; th ...

. It is named after a mountain in the North West Highlands. Recoverable oil reserves of Foinaven are estimated to be between .

Production

The Foinaven field is operated by BP Exploration in partnership with Rock Rose Energy. The development of the field was sanctioned in 1994 and the oil production in Foinaven started in November 1997. The phase 1 with 21 wells was completed in 2000. It has the designed oil production capacity of of oil. 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 A floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production and processing of hydrocarbons, and for the storage of oil. An FPSO vessel is designed to receive h ...

system (FPSO). Surface process facilities consist of two parallel oil separation and gas compression trains with a combined liquid handling capacity of of crude oil and of associated gas. The FPSO, Petrojarl Foinaven, which is operated by

Teekay Petrojarl Teekay Petrojarl was the largest Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) operator in the North Sea with a daily production of 339,000 barrels of oil per day and a storage capacity of of crude oil. Teekay Petrojarl operated five FPSO ...

, has an overall length of and an oil storage capacity of . It is permanently stationed in the field and the crude oil is exported by shuttle tankers. Oil is exported primarily to the

Flotta Flotta () is a small island in Orkney, Scotland, lying in Scapa Flow. The island is known for its large oil terminal and is linked by Orkney Ferries to Houton on the Orkney Mainland, Lyness on Hoy and Longhope on South Walls. The island has ...

oil terminal in

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

with smaller amount is going to

Tranmere Oil Terminal Tranmere Oil Terminal is situated on the River Mersey, south of Birkenhead. It was opened on 8 June 1960 to handle vessels of up to 65,000 tons, at two berths (North and South). It is connected to the Stanlow Oil Refinery by a pipeline. Part o ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...

. Approximately half of the produced associated gas is used for

enhanced oil recovery Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a reservoir's oil, compared to 20% to 40% using ...

of the field. Another half of natural gas is exported through the

West of Shetland pipeline The West of Shetland Pipeline (WOSP) is a pipeline system which transports natural gas from three offshore fields in the West of Shetland area to Sullom Voe Terminal in the Shetland Isles of Scotland. West of Shetland area The West of Shetland ...

to the

Sullom Voe Terminal The Sullom Voe Terminal is an oil and gas terminal at Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. It handles production from oilfields in the North Sea and East Shetland Basin and stores oil before it is transported by tanker. Construction ...

. Some of the exported gas is used as fuel in the

Fortum Fortum Oyj is a Finnish state-owned energy company located in Espoo, Finland. In addition to Finland, it focuses on Germany and other countries in Central Europe, Great Britain, Russia and the Nordic region. Fortum operates power plants, inc ...

operated Sullom Voe power station. The remainder is enriched with

liquefied petroleum gas Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or LP gas) is a fuel gas which contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, propylene, butylene, isobutane and n-butane. LPG is used as a fuel gas in heating appliances, cooking e ...

and exported to the Magnus platform for enhanced oil recovery in Magnus field. According to BP, to date, 390 million barrels of oil have been recovered from the Foinaven area.

Suspension of Production

In April 2021, BP suspended production from the Foinaven fields as the long-serving FPSO Petrojarl Foinaven through which the fields were producing oil is nearing the end of its 25-year design life, and will be removed from site. The FPSO was commissioned in 1996 and has been on location in the Foinaven area since 1997.According to BP, work had been underway to consider options to extend the life of the vessel out to 2025. BP concluded that, due to its age and the demands of operating west of Shetland, even with material further investment the Petrojarl Foinaven was not the right vehicle to recover the remaining resources from the Foinaven fields. BP and field partners have begun evaluating options to develop the estimated remaining resources of up to a possible 200 million barrels from the Foinaven field and surrounding area.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Foinaven field (BP website)
Oil fields west of Shetland BP oil and gas fields Marathon Oil