Thirty companies, some of them in groups, have received offers for the award of 37 licenses covering 141 blocks in the UK’s 31st offshore licensing round (OGJ Online, July 10, 2018).
The frontier areas are in the Faroe-Shetland basin, Moray Firth, East Irish Sea, East Shetland Platform, Mid North Sea High, and English Channel.
The Oil and Gas Authority received 36 applications covering 164 blocks.
It offered 15 licenses in the Central North Sea (North), 11 in the Northern North Sea and West of Shetland, 4 each in the Southern North Sea and Irish Sea, and 3 in the Central North Sea (South).
Bidding was based on work programs.
License administrators and the number of license offers they received are Ardent Oil (1), BP Exploration (1), Burgate Exploration & Production (2), Chevron North Sea (2), Chrysaor North Sea (3), Corallian Energy (5), Cycle Petroleum (4), Draupner Energy (2), Equinor UK (4), Faroe Petroleum (1), Geoscience Services (1), Jetex Petroleum (2), Nautical Petroleum (1), Petrogas E&P (1), Pharis Energy (1), Shell UK (1), Spirit Energy (2), Stelinmatvic Industries (1), Total E&P (1), and United Oil & Gas (1).
Work programs for two of the licenses go straight to field development planning: Chrysaor’s Block 13/22c in the Central North Sea (North) area, and Shell UK’s Block 211/13c (partial) in the Northern North Sea.