United Kingdom Oil and Gas Fields: 50th Anniversary Commemorative Volume
CONTAINS OPEN ACCESS

Geological Society Memoir 52 records the extraordinary journey of more than 50 years that has led to the development of some 458 oil and gas fields on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). It contains papers on almost 150 onshore and offshore fields in all of the UK's main petroliferous basins. These papers range from look-backs on some of the first-developed gas fields in the Southern North Sea, to papers on fields that have only just been brought into production or may still remain undeveloped, and includes two candidate CO2 sequestration projects.
These papers are intended to provide a consistent summary of the exploration, appraisal, development and production history of each field, leading to the current subsurface understanding which is described in greater detail. As such, the Memoir will be an enduring reference source for those exploring for, developing, producing hydrocarbons and sequestering CO2 on the UKCS in the coming decades. It encapsulates the petroleum industry's deep subsurface knowledge accrued over more than 50 years of exploration and production.
The Pierce Field, Blocks 23/22a and 23/27, UK North Sea
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Published:October 30, 2020
Abstract
The Pierce Field lies 250 km east of Aberdeen, in the UK sector of the East Central Graben. The field comprises twin salt diapirs, forming the trap for oil and free gas in the Paleocene–Eocene Forties Sandstone Member reservoir. The diapirs exerted a strong influence over the sedimentation of the reservoir, with the construction of multistorey sandstone bodies forming a complex reservoir geometry further complicated by a hydrodynamic aquifer.
The field currently produces to the Haewene Brim floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) installation, and has undergone several phases of development as the understanding has matured. It was initially...
- Aberdeen Scotland
- Aberdeenshire Scotland
- Atlantic Ocean
- Cenozoic
- development
- diapirs
- Eocene
- Europe
- Great Britain
- history
- North Atlantic
- North Sea
- offshore
- oil and gas fields
- Paleocene
- Paleogene
- petroleum
- petroleum exploration
- production
- reserves
- reservoir properties
- reservoir rocks
- salt domes
- Scotland
- Tertiary
- traps
- United Kingdom
- Western Europe
- Chalk Group
- Pierce Field
- Forties Sandstone Member