The Easington Catchment Area (known as ECA) is a group of

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

producing fields in the Southern North Sea. They lie in UK Blocks 42 and 47 between east of the

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

and

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

coast. The fields are operated by Perenco.

Development

The Easington Catchment Area project was developed in two phases. The £150 million first phase involved development of the Mercury (Block 47/9b) and Neptune (Blocks 47/4b and 47/5a) gas fields which had been discovered in 1983 and 1985 respectively. The ECA partners were, for the Neptune field: BG Exploration and Production Limited (61%), BP (18%), and

Amerada Hess Hess Corporation (formerly Amerada Hess Corporation) is an American global independent energy company involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. It was formed by the merger of Hess Oil and Chemical and Amerada Petr ...

(21%); and for the Mercury Field: BG Exploration and Production Limited (73%) and Amerada Hess (27%). The Neptune field was developed using three new wells, an existing well and a new NUI (normally unattended installation). The Mercury field was developed with a subsea installation with well fluids produced to the Neptune NUI via a 10-inch diameter pipeline. The Neptune platform consists of a 630 tonne jacket supporting a 681 tonne deck. From the Neptune platform co-mingled fluids are transported to a dedicated riser tower on the Cleeton installation via a 16-inch diameter pipeline. The gas is separated, dried and metered on Cleeton before transmission into the BP Cleeton/Dimlington pipeline system. A contract for the pipelines and subsea facilities, valued at around £23m, was awarded to ETPM UK. Methanol for hydrate formation inhibition is piped from Cleeton to the Neptune platform. First gas was produced in 1999. Details of the first phase installations are summarised in the table. The production profile, in mcm/y, of the Neptune field was as shown.

Second phase

The £270 million second phase of the ECA project, known as Juno, included the development of the Apollo (Block 47/4a), Artemis (Block 47/3), Minerva (Block 47/3), Whittle (Block 42/28b) and Wollaston (Block 42/28) gas fields. The majority stakeholder for the Juno fields was the

BG Group BG Group plc was a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. On 8 April 2015, Royal Dutch Shell announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire BG Group for $70 billion, subject to regulatory and ...

. The Minerva hub facilities consist of subsea production systems on Apollo and Artemis and a normally unattended installation (NUI) at Minerva. The Apollo subsea wells are tied back via a manifold and pipeline to the Minerva platform. The Artemis appraisal well is also tied back via a separate pipeline to the Minerva platform. Produced fluids from all three fields are co-mingled on the Minerva platform, and the combined flow exported via a 16-inch diameter pipeline to the BG-operated ECA riser tower bridge-linked to the Cleeton complex. The Wollaston and Whittle fields are developed via subsea wells and flowlines tied back via a manifold and a 12-inch diameter pipeline to the ECA riser tower, where they are co-mingled with the Minerva hub fluids. The first gas from the second phase was produced in 2003.

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

and

Artemis In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Artemis (; grc-gre, Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. She was heavily identified wit ...

are named from the Greek deities,

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Rom ...

from the Roman Deity, Whittle from

Frank Whittle Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, (1 June 1907 – 8 August 1996) was an English engineer, inventor and Royal Air Force (RAF) air officer. He is credited with inventing the turbojet engine. A patent was submitted by Maxime Guillaume in 1921 fo ...

the inventor of the

turbojet engine The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...

, and Wollaston from the Scientist

William Hyde Wollaston William Hyde Wollaston (; 6 August 1766 – 22 December 1828) was an English chemist and physicist who is famous for discovering the chemical elements palladium and rhodium. He also developed a way to process platinum ore into malleable ingot ...

. The second phase JUNO installations are summarised in the table. The production profile, in mcm/y, of the Apollo field was as shown.In 2009 BP acquired BG Group's share of the Juno fields. In 2012 BP sold its interests in the ECA fields and installations to Perenco.

References

External links

* {{Use British English, date=February 2016 Natural gas fields in the United Kingdom North Sea energy

Development

Second phase

See also

References

External links