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 Solan Field, Block 205/26a, UK Atlantic Margin
-
Published:October 30, 2020
Abstract
The Solan Field is a Jurassic reservoired oil accumulation located in Block 205/26a in the East Solan Basin, West of Shetland. The field was discovered in 1991 by the 205/26a-4 well which encountered oil in the Kimmeridgian to Early Volgian age Solan Sandstone and appraised between 1992 and 2009 by four wells and four sidetracks. Premier Oil farmed into Licence P.164 in 2011 and became operator.
The reservoir, which is up to 100 ft thick, is a basin-floor turbidite sequence and is informally subdivided into a thick and good quality Upper Solan sandstone unit and a thinner, poorer quality, Lower Solan sandstone unit, separated by the laterally extensive Middle Solan unit. Whilst the reservoir sandstones are relatively clean (texturally and compositionally mature) and laterally extensive, sub-seismic structural and stratigraphic complexity resulted in a challenging field development.
The field development to date comprises four subsea wells (two oil producers and two water injectors) tied back to a small jacket and topsides with an innovative subsea oil storage tank. Oil export is via shuttle tanker. First oil was achieved in April 2016. The field oil in place volume is in the range of 55–85 MMbbl.
- Atlantic Ocean
- continental shelf
- development
- Europe
- faults
- Great Britain
- history
- Jurassic
- Kimmeridge Clay
- Mesozoic
- North Atlantic
- Northeast Atlantic
- offshore
- oil and gas fields
- petroleum
- petroleum exploration
- production
- reserves
- reservoir rocks
- Scotland
- United Kingdom
- Upper Jurassic
- Volgian
- Western Europe
- northern Scotland
- Humber Group
- Foula Formation
- Solan Field
- Solan Member
- East Solan Basin