Seria oil field also known as Seria Field is the largest

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

in northwest

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

, discovered in 1929. The oil is accumulated in

Upper Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million years ago) to 5.333 Ma. The ev ...

sandstone, trapped in Seria Anticline that straddles the present day coastline. This field has produced more than 1 billion barrels of oil for more than 75 years.

Brunei Shell Petroleum Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

(BSP) is the operator of this field.

History

The exploration of the field started in late 1926, when F. F. Marriot (British Malay Petroleum Company Field Superintendent) and T. G. Cochrane (General Manager of Sarawak Oilfields Limited) smelled "oil" (H2S) in the

Kuala Belait Kuala Belait (KB; Jawi: ) is the administrative town of Belait District, Brunei. The population of the town proper was 4,259 in 2016. Kuala Belait is officially a municipal area (), as well as a village under the mukim of the same name. The t ...

and asked Straub, a Swiss geophysicist, to do a geophysical analysis of the area. A total of 36 oil wells were completed in 1935, while number of oil wells was increased to 53 in 1936. During the Japanese invasion, the oilfields in Seria have already been producing 17,000

barrels per day A barrel is one of several units of volume applied in various contexts; there are dry barrels, fluid barrels (such as the U.K. beer barrel and U.S. beer barrel), oil barrels, and so forth. For historical reasons the volumes of some barrel units ...

. At the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the Japanese ignited 14 of the 21 wells in the Seria field before evacuating. Australian servicemen attempted to control the fires by stopping the flow of the wells. By early 1950s, nodding donkeys were introduced to the oilfield. In 1953, a record breaking 36,496,599 barrels were produced, followed by a major blowout in well Seria 328 during a drilling operation. The extensions of Seria oil field namely South West Ampa Field and Tali Field respectively began production in 1964 and 1978. On 8 October 2004,

made a new discovery in Seria North Flank which was an undrilled part of the oil field. The well was drilled 3 km offshore in 8 m of water by the

Schlumberger Schlumberger Limited (), doing business as SLB, is an oilfield services company. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston, London, and The Hague. Schlumberger is the world's largest offshore drilling compa ...

self-propelled multi-purpose vessel.

Oil Fields

* Tali oil field * Enggang oil field * Anduki oil field

Wells

To date, more than 900 wells have been drilled in Seria Field, and more than 350 wells are still in production. Key wells include: * S-1 was the first exploration well, drilled in July 1928, which began producing oil in April 1929. * S-2 was brought on stream in 1930. After two blow-outs followed by shutdowns and sabotage during the World War II, it settled to a steady flow on gas-lift and proved to be a valuable producer. * S-5, which is still producing and is the earliest well still in production in Seria Field. * S-328 was drilled in 1953 with a blow-out. With a power of a minor earthquake, it demolished an adjacent building and left a crater flooded with water. * S-454 was spudded in the middle of a housing area. * S-516 was drilled in 1956 with a serious blow-out. A jet of oil, gas and sand rose over 30 meters into the air, and the well had to be 'killed' with 90

tonnes The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United States ...

of mud and plugging material. * S-558 was drilled in 1964 across the road from Brunei Shell's head office.

History

Oil Fields

Wells

References

Further reading