Oil & Gas UK Economic Report 2014

Total – West of Shetland Gas

Total’s investment in Laggan-Tormore, with its 20 per cent partner DONG Energy, is an essential component in unlocking some of the 17 per cent of the UK’s remaining hydrocarbon reserves that would otherwise be stranded there. DECC sanctioned the development of Laggan-Tormore in March 2010 and so the project, Total’s biggest ever on the UKCS, was under way. The technical challenges involved are hard to overstate. With the wells at 600m (2,000 feet) below the sea’s surface, Laggan-Tormore is the deepest major oil and gas development ever carried out on the UKCS. Furthermore, with water temperatures at that depth of -1 degree Celsius and typical current speeds of 0.64 metres/second (two feet/second), this project is being carried out under conditions never experienced in the North Sea.

Laggan and Tormore The story of Total E&P UK’s Laggan-Tormore project is one that has been nearly 30 years in the telling. This £3.3 billion development will open a new gas frontier WoS and is one of the most ambitious and challenging development programmes ever undertaken on the UKCS. Initially discovered in 1986, Laggan was deemed uncommercial because of the technical difficulties in developing a gas field in the deepwaters 125kmnorthwest of Shetland. However, with better interpretation of seismic data in 2004, the discovery of the nearby Tormore field in 2007 and various technical advances, a commercial case emerged. Total decided that, when combined, Laggan and Tormore could form a new production hub that opens up the WoS region to gas exploration and production activity, not just by Total itself, but by the whole industry.

Total’s Shetland Gas Plant taking shape, May 2014. Source: Total

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ECONOMIC REPORT 2014