UK launches 32nd Offshore Licensing Round

July 11, 2019
The UK Oil and Gas Authority is offering 768 blocks or partial blocks in the main producing areas of the UK Continental Shelf in the 32nd Offshore Licensing Round.

The UK Oil and Gas Authority is offering 768 blocks or partial blocks in the main producing areas of the UK Continental Shelf in the 32nd Offshore Licensing Round.

The blocks are in the central, northern, and southern North Sea and the West of Shetlands area.

Companies may propose additional blocks in adjacent areas until the afternoon of July 18. Applicants must show intention to commit to a “substantial firm work program.”

The round closes the afternoon of Nov. 12.

The OGA is releasing geophysical data assembled in collaboration with 11 companies, including operators and third-party specialists (OGJ Online, Aug. 7, 2018).

The offering includes what the OGA calls “the largest publicly available geochemical database for the UKCS, representing over 90,000 geochemical samples from more than 2,700 wells.”

Other significant data sets include 23,000 sq km of 3D post-stack seismic data from the southern North Sea and a rock-physics study focused on pre-Cretaceous targets of the central North Sea and East Shetland Basin.

The OGA also is releasing a satellite seeps database, digital well logs for more than 2,000 wells, a structural and tectonic elements database, a library of apatite fission track reports, gravity inversion products, a rock physics calibration study, and a catalog of opportunities in unlicensed acreage from relinquishment reports.