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 Kilmar Field, Block 43/22a, UK North Sea
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Published:October 30, 2020
Abstract
The Kilmar Field, part of the Tors complex (Kilmar and Garrow fields), was discovered in 1992 and is located on the northern margins of the Southern North Sea Basin. Gas is produced from Namurian sandstones, at a depth of 11 000 ft, from a 25 km2 closure at the Base Permian level. The reservoir was deposited as a series of stacked channel sandstones in a fluvio-deltaic setting. Seismic imaging of intra-Carboniferous strata is limited, so mapping of individual bodies of sandstone is not achievable. The development philosophy has been to maximize the drilled lengths of specific reservoir units and to contact multiple sandstone bodies by drilling long, high-angle, multi-bore production wells. The sandstones are of low to medium porosity and permeability, supplemented by connection through a fracture network. At project sanction in 2005, the combined gas-in-place resource in Kilmar was estimated to be 311 bcf and a total of 75 bcf gas recovery from three wells was forecast. Cumulative gas production to date is 69 bcf. Whilst the gas-in-place has changed little, the distribution has changed between segments. The recovery factor for the field is 24%. Infill drilling opportunities have been identified but are gas price dependent.
- Atlantic Ocean
- Carboniferous
- clastic rocks
- deltaic environment
- enhanced recovery
- Europe
- faults
- fluvial environment
- gas-water interface
- geophysical methods
- history
- lithostratigraphy
- marine environment
- Namurian
- natural gas
- North Atlantic
- North Sea
- oil and gas fields
- paleoenvironment
- Paleozoic
- permeability
- Permian
- petroleum
- porosity
- production
- reserves
- reservoir properties
- reservoir rocks
- Rotliegendes
- sandstone
- sedimentary rocks
- seismic methods
- Tor Formation
- traps
- United Kingdom
- Western Europe
- Southern Gas Basin
- Rotliegend Group
- Silverpit Claystone Formation
- Kilmar Field