United Kingdom Oil and Gas Fields: 50th Anniversary Commemorative Volume
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 Cavendish Field, Block 43/19, UK North Sea
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Published:October 30, 2020
Abstract
The Cavendish Field is located in UK Continental Shelf Block 43/19a on the northern margin of the Outer Silverpit Basin of the Southern North Sea, 87 miles (140 km) NE of the Lincolnshire coast in a water depth of 62 ft (18.9 m). The Cavendish Field is a gas field in the upper Carboniferous Namurian C (Millstone Grit Formation) and Westphalian A (Caister Coal Formation) strata. It was discovered in 1989 by Britoil-operated well 43/19-1. Production started in 2007 and ceased in 2018. Gas initially in place was 184 bcf and at end of field life 98 bcf had been produced. The field was developed by three wells drilled through the normally unmanned platform into fluvio-deltaic sandstone intervals that had sufficiently good reservoir quality to be effective reservoirs. The majority of the formation within closure comprises mudstones, siltstones and low permeability, non-reservoir-quality feldspathic sandstones. The quality of the reservoir is variable and is controlled by grain size, feldspar content and diagenesis. The field is a structural trap, sealed by a combination of intra-Carboniferous mudstones and a thick sequence of Permian mudstones and evaporites.
- Atlantic Ocean
- basins
- Carboniferous
- clastic rocks
- continental shelf
- diagenesis
- energy sources
- England
- Europe
- grain size
- Great Britain
- history
- landform evolution
- Lincolnshire England
- lithofacies
- models
- mudstone
- Namurian
- natural gas
- North Atlantic
- North Sea
- offshore
- oil and gas fields
- Paleozoic
- permeability
- Permian
- petroleum
- petroleum exploration
- production
- reserves
- reservoir properties
- reservoir rocks
- sandstone
- sealing
- sedimentary basins
- sedimentary rocks
- siltstone
- structural traps
- traps
- United Kingdom
- Upper Carboniferous
- Western Europe
- Westphalian
- Millstone Grit Formation
- Outer Silverpit Basin
- Cavendish Field
- Caister Coal Formation