GESGB Aberdeen Evening Lecture – May 2023 (In-Person)

GESGB members can register free of charge via the membership platform

If you are interested in becoming a member of GESGB please visit: https://www.ges-gb.org.uk/membership/

Date/Timings: Tuesday 9 May 2023 – 18:00-19:00 (doors open at 17:30)

Venue: Inn at the Park, Ferryhill, AB11 7RX (free parking provided)

Catering: Self-funded bar

Speaker: Maurice Bamford, Orcadian Energy

Topic: Pilot – a Viscous Oil Development

Abstract

The Pilot field is a well appraised, undeveloped viscous oil discovery reservoired in Eocene aged turbidites and located on the Western Platform to the Central Graben. The Tay sands are excellent quality reservoir, however, the viscosity of the oil has resulted in the discovery remaining undeveloped to date.

Pilot was discovered in 1989 by Fina, who drilled another 5 appraisal penetrations including side-tracks. Their final appraisal well was a horizontal one, which was tested at c. 1,800 bopd with an ESP. Following the Total takeover of Fina, the acreage was sold to Venture who subsequently submitted a field development plan for the field based on a graded oil column model which predicted an updip oil quality sweet point. A subsequent appraisal well was drilled to confirm the model predictions, however, the graded oil column was not as well developed as predicted and the field development was cancelled.

The acreage is currently held by Orcadian Energy who have built on recent experience of viscous oil developments in onshore Canada and the success of Ithaca’s Captain polymer flood to come up with a suitable offshore development scheme, which involves a polymer flood with closely spaced injector-producer pairs.

The talk will set the field in its regional context, give an overview of the geology, geophysical response of the hydrocarbons, and discuss the biodegradation of the oil. The proposed development scheme and supporting reservoir modelling will be presented, plus how a viscous oil development is designed to achieve a world class reduction in GHG emissions.

Maurice Bamford – Orcadian Energy

Maurice graduated in Geology from Queens University Belfast in1984, before going on to do a Ph.D. in sedimentology at University College Cork. He initially worked at the University of Keele as a post-doctorate structural geologist before joining the  oil industry in 1989.  During his thirty-plus years in the industry he was worked for operators, a service company and as an independent consultant with most of his experience being in the North Sea.  Most of this time was spend with BP, Robertson’s Group, Talisman Energy (UK), and EnQuest. In the latter two companies, he became Exploration and Geoscience Manager. Since 2016, he has been an independent consultant and in the last few years spends most of his time working for Orcadian Energy where he is Exploration & Geoscience Manager.