ByTsvetana Paraskova– Feb 04, 2025, 9:30 AM CST
Shell has restored oil and gas production from the Penguins field in the UK North Sea with a new floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, the UK-based supermajor said on Tuesday, days after a court ruled that government approvals for two planned UK fields were unlawful.
The new Shell-operated FPSO facility will be the new export route for the Penguins field’s oil and gas production, replacing the previous export route via the Brent Charlie platform, which ceased production in 2021, and is being decommissioned.
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As a result, the Penguins field, 150 miles northeast of the Shetland Islands, was redeveloped by drilling additional wells, which are tied back to the new FPSO.
Discovered in 1974, the field previously produced oil and gas between 2003 and 2021.
Shell estimates peak production from Penguins at around 45,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed). Currently, the field has an estimated discovered recoverable resource volume of approximately 100 million boe.
Although primarily oil production, Penguins will also produce enough gas to heat around 700,000 UK homes per year, Shell said in a statement.
The new FPSO will have 30% lower operational emissions compared with Brent Charlie and is expected to extend the life of this field by up to 20 years.
Natural gas will be transported through the existing pipeline to the St Fergus gas terminal in the northeast of Scotland, which supplies the UK’s national gas network.
“Today, the UK relies on imports to meet much of its demand for oil and gas,” said Zoë Yujnovich, Shell’s Integrated Gas and Upstream Director.
“The Penguins field is a source of the secure domestic energy production people need today.”
The restart of Penguins comes days after the Scottish Court of Session ruled that the government approval for Shell’s Jackdaw and Equinor’s Rosebank fields in the UK North Sea was unlawful, dampening industry hopes that new domestic oil and gas production could begin soon and help reduce the UK’s reliance on imported oil and gas.
At the end of last year, Equinor and Shell announced they would merge their UK oil and gas assets in a 50/50 joint venture which will be the largest independent oil and gas producer in the UK North Sea.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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