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 Morag Field, Block 16/29a, UK North Sea
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Published:October 30, 2020
Abstract
The Morag Field is a small oilfield underlying the Maureen Field in UK Block 16/29a. Black oil is trapped within Upper Permian, Morag Member, vuggy and fractured dolomite rafts between 9300 and 10 600 ft true vertical depth subsea. The dolomite reservoir occurs at the top of a Zechstein salt dome. Morag was discovered in 1979 by well 16/29a-A1, the first platform well drilled for the overlying Maureen Field with its Paleocene sandstone reservoir. Morag was produced via a single well (16/29a-A1) between 1991 and 1994. Three more platform wells were drilled into the Permian interval prior to Maureen Field start up but only one penetrated oil-bearing dolomite (16/29a-A2). An additional well (16/29a–A23Z) was drilled into the Morag Field in 1993. The well encountered Morag Member at virgin pressure and tested oil at high flow rate but then the well failed due to mechanical problems. Oil in place was calculated to be about 24 MMbbl in four independent fault blocks. Ultimately 16/29a-A1 delivered 2.6 MMbbl from a fault block calculated to have held 6.7 MMbbl stock tank oil initially in place.
- Atlantic Ocean
- carbonate rocks
- Cenozoic
- clastic rocks
- development
- dolostone
- Europe
- fractures
- history
- Jurassic
- Mesozoic
- North Atlantic
- North Sea
- oil and gas fields
- Paleocene
- Paleogene
- Paleozoic
- Permian
- petroleum
- petroleum accumulation
- petroleum exploration
- production
- reserves
- reservoir rocks
- salt domes
- sandstone
- sedimentary rocks
- Tertiary
- traps
- United Kingdom
- Upper Permian
- water wells
- Western Europe
- Humber Group
- Skagerrak Formation
- Maureen Formation
- Zechstein Group
- Smith Bank Formation
- Maureen Field
- Pentland Formation
- Fladen Group
- Heron Group
- Morag Member
- Morag Field