Has Hurricane Discovered the UK's Largest Oil Deposit? 

While the North Sea was once considered an oil and gas gold mine, discoveries have more or less dried up over the past few years. That is until Britain’s Hurricane Energy honed in on a titanic crude oil deposit. The company has big plans for the site, and has already heralded it as “the largest undeveloped discovery in UK oil.”

Liquid gold in Greater Lancaster

After exploratory drilling at its Halifax structure, Hurricane discovered a large crude oil deposit within the Greater Lancaster area, which sits less than 60 miles west of the Shetland Islands. According to a preliminary estimate, the find could unlock around one billion barrels of crude oil. Key findings include:

- A significant hydrocarbon column of at least 1,156 m has been identified within the basement. It extends well below local structural closure, which sits at 1,040 m TVDSS

- An initial analysis of borehole image logs has confirmed that the basement reservoir (which sits below the final casing point) is pervasively fractured

- Based on initial petrophysical analysis, porosity is consistent with measurements taken from the Lancaster site

Big dreams for the British Isles

Hurricane Energy will kickstart field development in 2019, which could put Greater Lancaster on the map as the largest oil deposit off the coast of the British Isles. If the estimates are correct, Halifax could emerge as Hurricane Energy’s biggest discovery, trumping the Lancaster deposit discovered several years ago. At the time, Lancaster’s value was estimated at 25 million barrels.

As well as being a big win for Hurricane, the new discovery also strengthens the British oil industry as a whole. The latest statistics from the UK Oil and Gas Association reveal that deposits exploration in Great Britain has dropped to a record low. Furthermore, proven oil reserves have fallen to as low as six billion barrels. This is a significant drop, considering that reserves were once estimated at around 12 billion barrels.

Large scale shutdowns haven’t helped the industry, with Shell recently announcing plans to decommission its Brent oilfield. The iconic site gave the global oil benchmark its name, however now Shell has admitted that returns simply aren’t worthwhile.

Eco obstacles

As it pieces together an extraction plan, Hurricane Energy will face an onslaught of obstacles. Environmental concerns are bound to arise, especially given the Halifax structure’s proximity to the Shetland Islands. For more information on the environmental concerns associated with the oil and gas industry, this article is a must read. Titled ‘Ecological and economical measurement of oil-in-water without compromising accuracy,’ it explores how ERACHECK ECO outperforms all currently used oil-in-water measurement techniques.