French energy giant TotalEnergies has marked a milestone for its Ailsa floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel in the central UK North Sea.
More than 20 million barrels of gas condensate have been exported from the facility to date.
Ailsa supports the Culzean platform 150 miles east of Aberdeen.
FSO linked to one of UK North Sea’s largest fields
Culzean started up in June 2019 after an investment of around £3.5 billion. It is one of the largest fields in the UK sector – and the biggest to be started in the UK in the past 25 years.
Ailsa and the asset’s bridge-linked platforms were built in Singapore.
TotalEnergies said the 20 million-barrel achievement was an “incredible milestone”.
Ailsa is about 820ft long, or roughly the equivalent of 20 double-decker buses parked in a line.
Gas condensate coming into the vessel is later offloaded by shuttle tankers and delivered to oil refineries, where it is used to make fuels and chemicals like aviation fuel. Gas is exported via the UK’s Cats pipeline and taken to Teesside for processing.
Discovered in 2008, Culzean was hailed as the biggest find in the UK North Sea in 10 years. It was also the largest gas development to be approved in the area since East Brae in 1990.
At start-up, Culzean was estimated to have reserves of 250m-300m barrels of oil equivalent and be capable of covering 5% of UK gas demand.
TotalEnergies – then just Total – got involved following its £5.8bn acquisition of Danish firm Maersk Oil in 2018.
The French company is now partnered with UK firms BP (32%) and Neo Energy (18%) on the project.
Conversation