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 Hutton, NW Hutton, Q-West and Darwin fields, Blocks 211/27 and 211/28, UK North Sea
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Published:October 30, 2020
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CiteCitation
J. G. Gluyas, H. Turnell, R. Ball, J. Henderson, M. Mulcahy, C. Richardson, J. Tyrie, F. Wahid, 2020. "The Hutton, NW Hutton, Q-West and Darwin fields, Blocks 211/27 and 211/28, UK North Sea", United Kingdom Oil and Gas Fields: 50th Anniversary Commemorative Volume, G. Goffey, J. G. Gluyas
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Abstract
Hutton (discovered in 1973) and NW Hutton (discovered in 1975), together with Q-West (discovered in 1994) and Darwin (discovered in 1983, undeveloped), are part of a single petroleum system. The main fields were defined as two separate legal entities. Although Q–West covered multiple blocks, it was wholly developed via the Hutton platform.
Together, Hutton and NW Hutton produced 328 MMbbl of oil and a small quantity of associated gas from Middle Jurassic Brent Group sandstones. The trap is a complex series of tilted fault blocks sealed by Mid–Upper Jurassic Heather and Kimmeridge Clay Formation mudstones. Oil was sourced from the Kimmeridge Clay Formation, which is mature for oil generation in the hanging walls to the field-bounding faults and deep on the footwall flanks.
NW Hutton underperformed relative to Hutton. In part this was due to the poorer reservoir quality encountered at depth compared with the shallower Hutton Field but a significant component of the underperformance was due to the way in which the field was developed and then operated. Both fields contain areas of unproduced and unswept oil, with the NW Hutton portion having the largest remaining oil in place.
- abandoned oil wells
- Atlantic Ocean
- Bajocian
- Brent Group
- clastic rocks
- enhanced recovery
- Europe
- Heather Formation
- history
- hydrocarbons
- Jurassic
- Kimmeridge Clay
- marine installations
- marine platforms
- Mesozoic
- Middle Jurassic
- North Atlantic
- North Sea
- oil and gas fields
- oil wells
- oil-water interface
- organic compounds
- petroleum
- petroleum exploration
- production
- rates
- reserves
- reservoir rocks
- sandstone
- sedimentary rocks
- traps
- United Kingdom
- Western Europe
- Hutton Field
- Northwest Hutton Field
- Darwin Field
- Hutton Platform
- Q-West Field