Premier Oil PLC has received UK government approval to develop Solan oil field on Block 205/26a in the West of Shetland area 160 km offshore Scotland.
Premier will develop the field, which Amerada Hess discovered in the early 1990s, with two production wells and two water-injection wells completed subsea and tied back to a processing platform on a conventional steel jacket installed in 135 m of water. Oil will be stored in a subsea tank with capacity of 300,000 bbl for offloading onto shuttle tankers.
Production is estimated to begin in 2014 at 24,000 b/d. Oil is 27º gravity with a GOR of 124 scf/bbl. Premier estimates reserves in the Jurassic Solan reservoir at 40 million bbl.
After a year of production, the platform will not normally be staffed.
Premier is operator during development with a 60% interest, which it acquired last year from private Chrysaor Ltd., London. Chrysaor holds the other 40%.
