The Rosebank oil and gas field lies west of

Shetland 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 ...

. It is operated by

Equinor Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger. It is primarily a petroleum company, operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. I ...

;

Suncor Suncor Energy (french: Suncor Énergie) is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-l ...

and Siccar Point Energy. The discovery well was drilled in 2004. A final investment decision for Rosebank is planned to be taken by May 2022. In 2022, Siccar Point Energy has been acquired by Ithaca Energy, a daughter company of

Delek Delek Group is an Israeli conglomerate and one of Israel's largest companies, Delek Group is involved in the energy and infrastructure, with investments in upstream and downstream energy, water desalination and power plants. Delek Group' subsidi ...

Group. Ocean depth is . The discovery well, drilled to , flowed of 37°

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

light oil from a deposit thick.

Exploration and Appraisal

Licence P.1026 covering blocks 213/26 and 213/27 was awarded to Texaco North Sea UK Co in the 19th UK offshore licensing round on June 1, 2001. The work program included a commitment to reprocess 3D seismic and to reach a decision on a 'drill or drop' well commitment within three years. In October 2001, Texaco was merged with Chevron who farmed-down its share of the licence to 40% prior to the discovery well, 213/27-1Z, being drilled in 2004. At the time of discovery the other licence owners were Statoil (30%), OMV (20%) and DONG (10%). Shortly after the discovery the four companies were granted an additional licence (P.1191) on adjacent block 205/1. Several changes in ownership of the licence have taken place resulting in the current ownership of Equinor 40% (and operator of the licence), Suncor (40%) and Siccar Point (20%). Statoil had sold its 30% stake of the licence to OMV in 2013 prior to Equinor acquiring Chevron's 40% stake in 2019. Statoil was renamed Equinor in 2018. The licences currently cover blocks 213/26b, 213/27a and 205/1a. A three well appraisal program commenced in October 2006 and the second well in the sequence, 205/1-1, was flowed tested at a rate of 6,000 barrels/day of good quality oil. In oil and gas exploration it is common practice for prospects and discoveries to be named according to a theme. Texaco named the Rosebank prospect after the Scottish

malt whisky Malt whisky is whisky made from a fermented mash consisting primarily of malted barley. If the product is made exclusively at a single distillery (along with other restrictions), it is typically called a single malt whisky. Although malt whisky ca ...

Rosebank. Texaco also named other prospects in the Atlantic Margin in keeping with the theme including

Lagavulin Lagavulin ( gd, Lag a' Mhuilinn, "hollow of the mill") is a small village approximately outside Port Ellen on the Isle of Islay, Scotland. The village is within the parish of Kildalton, and is situated on the A846 road The A846 road is one o ...

, Talisker and

Lochnagar Lochnagar or is a mountain in the Mounth, in the Grampians of Scotland. It is about south of the River Dee near Balmoral. It is a popular hill with hillwalkers, and is a noted venue for summer and winter climbing. Names The English name ...

. Other naming themes in use by various operators include sea birds (Shell), Scottish mountains (BP), castles, rivers, Scottish dances and famous geologists (Conoco).

Geology

The deposit is contained in layers of

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

period, Palaeocene Colsay

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

which lie between layers of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

making use of

seismic imaging Geophysical imaging (also known as geophysical tomography) is a minimally destructive geophysical technique that investigates the subsurface of a terrestrial planet. Geophysical imaging is a noninvasive imaging technique with a high parametrical ...

difficult and expensive. It is estimated that of oil and gas could be recovered. A deeper

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

period accumulation was also encountered in some of the wells and this was named Lochnagar.

Practical considerations

Weather conditions are extremely difficult. Superstructure is designed to withstand waves. High petroleum prices and favourable tax treatment is needed. Bringing gas to market requires finding a way to finance a pipeline which would combine production from several fields in the West of Shetland area into a gas export pipeline.UK offshore oil and gas - Energy and Climate Change Contents: 4, West of Shetland
/ref> Equinor have selected FPSO Petrojarl Knarr for the development. The ship was constructed in 2014 for BG Norge.

Notes and references

External links and further reading

{{coord missing, Atlantic Ocean Oil fields west of Shetland Natural gas fields in the United Kingdom Chevron Corporation oil and gas fields Equinor oil and gas fields Former Ørsted (company) oil and gas fields