BP is reopening the Murlach North Sea oil field for at least ten more years, despite Ed Miliband’s best efforts to halt new fossil fuel projects. The Telegraph has the details.
The energy giant is reviving the Murlach field, which was declared uneconomic and taken out of use in 2004, has now become viable partly due to new technologies.
BP won agreement to reopen Murlach, 120 miles east of Aberdeen, under the previous government and has since been installing equipment, with production potentially restarting next month.
The milestone comes despite efforts by the Energy Secretary to bring an end to new fossil fuel production in the North Sea. Mr Miliband and his predecessors have almost doubled the taxation rate on oil and gas profits and banned the issuing of licences for new exploration and production.
BP said the Murlach field contained 20 million barrels of recoverable oil and 600 million cubic metres of gas – enough to keep it in production for 11 years. “Murlach is expected to produce around 20,000 barrels of oil and 17 million cubic feet of gas per day,” it said.
It means BP can partially reverse the decline in North Sea output, which has seen oil production fall from 96,000 barrels per day in 2020 to 70,000 last year. Gas production has fallen from 221m square feet a day to 197m. …
BP’s success at Murlach follows a similar story at Shell, which restarted production from its Penguins oil field north of Shetland earlier this year – despite Greenpeace protesters boarding its new production vessel.
The field went into production in 2003 but had to be shut down in 2021 when the Brent Charlie production platform was decommissioned. Production restarted this year with Shell expecting 45,000 barrels a day once in full flow.
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“Gas production has fallen from 221m square feet a day” I presume you mean cubic feet?
You should direct your question to the telegraph.
Two left feet
Haven’t you heard of the Flat Earth?
Here’s the map of the Flat Earth … appropriately, it’s on the UN flag
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%2Fid%2FOIP.MehLyVA1inr_weYdBpyIBwHaE8%3Fpid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=cc6ff57cc7f18ab9f50ca43ff9a0173905c73300d204841589b731449cd5875b&ipo=images
Even “cubic feet”???
I thought GB went Metric.
Boarding vessels at sea, uninvited . is PIRACY.
Greenpeace members should be arrested.
Or simply toss them overboard, as was the case in 2010 with the boarding of the MV Moscow University by the Russian navy.
At last, common sense and the profit motive combine to give us more fuel for our current human sustainability, to hell with misplaced socialist climate morality, we need more energy now!
Doesn’t Mad Ed know that firetrucks with big Diesel engines use much Diesel fuel when putting out fires?
Mad Ed believes.
I certainly would not want an EV firetruck close to an inferno.
And the naughty Norwegians are sensibly defying miniprick as well; … he will be cross (:-))
https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/norway/577956/norways-energy-minister-pledges-to-bring-back-annual-oil-and-gas-licensing-rounds/
Gotta fund that welfare state somehow.
Just in [Rowlatt]
British SST are now… 0.2C warmer!
In other news…
Extreme weather is the UK’s new normal, says Met Office
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74w1gyd7mko
Jokers.
Your linked BBC article rolls out the oft-used but misleading probability chart in which the entire distribution (presumably representing temperature) is simply shifted to the right. This shift is misleading in that the data shows that increasing minimum temperatures contribute more to the rising global mean (whatever global mean might actually mean) than increasing maximum temperatures, so the distribution is being compressed. The actual chart shown, credited to US EPA, also flags “more hot” and “more extreme hot” zones but only flags a “less cold” zone. Why no “less extreme cold” zone? You’d have thought that quite important given what is known about deaths from cold vs deaths from heat. Whoever drew this chart must have made a conscious choice not to include a “less extreme cold” zone.
“Your linked BBC article “
Is an exemplar in state sponsored propaganda. The change in the weather presentation has certainly heated up…
BBC management is scientifically illiterate but extremely astute in matters of psychological manipulation.
Story Tip
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/11/the-hidden-net-zero-tax-crushing-british-industry/
Unfortunately paywalled. This is an excellent piece on carbon pricing in the UK. The policy itself is idiotic, what it does is raise energy costs for any company using gas, coal or oil over a certain level.
In July, the average cost of power generated by gas-fired plants was £79.24 per megawatt hour. Of this, £25.64 or 32pc was carbon taxes, according to figures published by the think tank Ember.
This is important as most of the time, gas power plants set prices for the rest of the electricity market – meaning the cost of carbon taxes is inflating everyone’s bills.
Ed Hezlet, head of energy at the think tank Centre for British Progress, calculates that the levies accounted for about 7.5pc or £70 per year of a typical household’s power bill.
So this is crazy enough in itself, it amounts to a plan to wipe out British manufacturing.
However, combine it with all the other green measures on energy, and it gets even crazier. Move them all to electricity is the idea. But they can’t get connected, because of grid shortfalls. If they could, there is soon going to be no reliable power to connect to. Then we have Tata Steel.
Tata Steel, which runs the UK’s largest steel mill in Port Talbot, Wales, shut down its blast furnaces last year and is switching to an electric arc furnace partly for this reason.
[the carbon levy]
It is understood that the company, which laid off 2,500 workers last year, would have faced a carbon tax bill of £400m a year by the 2030s otherwise. The electric arc furnace that it is acquiring will partly be financed by a £500m grant from the Government.
Once again we have the UK policy of increase demand for electricity, in this case for industry via the carbon tax, and at the same time destroy supply by moving generation to wind and solar, with in this case the carbon tax added to a raft of other levies and purchase obligations. And at the same time raise the price of electricity by adding many of these levies to the electricity bill.
What does the Government say about this?
A government spokesman said: “Accelerating to net zero is the economic opportunity of the 21st century and at the heart of the government’s mission to boost growth, create jobs and tackle the climate crisis.
“A strong UK Emissions Trading Scheme will play a key role driving green investment as part of a broader industrial strategy, creating jobs and growing the UK’s economy.
“Our Modern Industrial Strategy will also unlock the potential of British industry by slashing industrial electricity prices in key sectors.”
Slashing electricity prices, notice that? The economic opportunity of the 21st century? Tackling the climate crisis??
Britain is being governed and administered by lunatics.
Britain is being governed and administered by lunatics.
Indeed we are – by Parliament as a whole
———————-
Freedom of Information requests fired by the Tories have discovered the actual cost of the Chagos Surrender deal: £34.7 billion in nominal terms. Guido has the full figures…
…
Labour’s extension of the “deport now, appeal later” scheme would only apply to 1.6% of small boat migrants and a tiny number of Foreign National Offenders. A potemkin move…
…
In a sign of the nascent “Let Keir be Keir” direction Downing Street is taking, growth has been abandoned by the PM. A monster budget is hurtling down the track…
So stabilised is the economy that there is a brand new £41 billion “black hole” to be filled with tax rises. On that Starmer said “some of the figures that have been put out are not figures that I recognise, but the budget won’t be until later in the year.” He doesn’t have to recognise them for them to be true…. –
Guido Fawkes
Where is Nick Stokes when you want to rub his nose in it?
I asked Grok: Is Nick Stokes a real person?
Nick Stokes is not a real person. He is a fictional character from the TV show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, played by actor George Eads.
I thought his name a pun on stoking up trouble….
Devilishly stoking the fires…
Indeed we are – by Parliament as a whole
Something that needs to be stressed. It has been, and to a great extent still is, cross-party lunacy. The Port Talbot blast furnace fiasco, of course, happened under the (notionally) Tory government. And it was in the twilight of May’s disastrous premiership that the net-zero targets were nodded through Parliament. With regard to the abject Chagos ‘deal’, Starmer and his dubious mates have been able to run so quickly with it because the (notional) Tories had already been working on it for a couple of years.
The Lib Dums did their bit to aid and abet Cameron’s green freakery in the coalition government, and remain as green as ever – they put their weight behind the insane Climate and Nature Bill.
How does the existing UK government’s “Modern Industrial Strategy” differ from all the old-fashioned governmental industrial strategies that have failed universally throughout the past?
What are the “new technologies” that are “partially responsible” for the decision? Both “the details” and the “read in full” links are paid up, and nada from a search. The AI guesses are just pablum, EOR and seismic were about as good in 2003, Subsea improvements are not make or break in the North Sea. Better drilling and processing might provide a short term nudge, but not much more. Prices are bad.
So, we’re left with the Gulf of Mexico rationale. Incremental, ROR economics tells us that by returning such fields to “production”, even at zero barrels of oil equivalent per day, with skeleton crews and generally low bid, OpEx, the deferral of asset retirement costs out to – forever – results in a satisfactory payout. BP will end up with GOM type rot that hardly casts a shadow, the “installations” will get LLC’d to a shill, and the UK will end up 0.5 assing the plugs, abandons, restorations.
The Norwegians, with their world class operations and Euros lockboxed for asset retirements need to wise up…
Blimey, Bob…
So, we’re left with the Gulf of Mexico rationale
Where in the UK are you? Do tell…
“Where in the UK are you? Do tell”
The GOM tale is applicable everywhere. We lead the world in shirking freely assumed responsibilities. Copper, coal, gold, all with clean up costs communized after the extractors disappeared. But the idea apparently caught on, because BP seems to be emulating both guv and non guv operators in the FSU, Africa, South America, by following our lead and “deferring” taking out the trash.
Is “where” the island spelling? As a long time trainer of EASL engineers, I’m cool with spello’s/syntacto’s. But it looks like this is your mom tongue…
Not in the UK, then.
Another armchair expert.
“Another armchair expert.
Sorry s. My first “armchair” was pulling slips on a Sooner Trend workover rig, underage, at 15. Post Seabees, 2 petroleum engineering degrees, certification, and 35 years worth of domestic and international oilfield trashin’. Which is why no commenters have attempted a data based rebut of any of my points…
Yet on the UK and the abject loonies running it that counts for nothing.
Whatever Gulf you choose to invoke.
SmallAleBoob,
1st rule of oilfield, don’t bullsheet a bullsheeter.
and Yr full of bullsheet.
Petroleum degrees out of Swamp College Biloxi doesn’t count.
Chartered Engineer out of a UK Institute of Marine Engineering does.
And to paraphrase Elizabeth Bennett Browning, let me count the the ways….
Since 2003 we have;
5D seismic
Real time whilst drilling wireline (contact resistivity/sonic/gamma)
Real time down hole wellbore placement (LWD)
real-time VSP (Google it)
Remote operations centres
Smart completion strings inc –
Reservoir flooding/stimulation/gas lift/herringbones/smart frac
remote rig operations
M/L (that’s machine learning to you) on wellbode construction data across domains
and BTW…all basins are not the same but you wouldn’t know that cos you’re a Bodinkum assistant driller with a grudge against hydrocarbons.
all adding up to an increase of 00-300% technical limit improvement in baseline lift costs
Many of your “post 2003” improvements, aren’t. In fact, I ran the first smart California offshore completion string well before 2003. Keep up.
“Petroleum degrees out of Swamp College Biloxi doesn’t count.
“Mines” school ok? USC ok? Oklahoma professional engineering certification – by exam, unlike Tx., in 1985 – 0k? Sorry Fred^2, I’m at least as oily as you. And by your boners on what is post 2003 and what’s not, I’m sure I have seen and done more…
” BTW…all basins are not the same”
Captain obvious, at the helm.
so literally no rejoiners to my tech devs
US exams don’t count. Getting 50% for getting your name correct – great….
see and done more – name them. You wouldn’t know a wet link from a UBHO
and California – eyeroll
From post:”… Gulf of Mexico…”.
Another typo.
Bob really gets his panties in a twist whenever his dreams of peak oil are dashed.
Gulf of America.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/encyclopedia-britannica-refuses-to-rename-the-gulf-of-mexico-and-the-reason-it-cited-is-going-viral/articleshow/118248526.cms?from=mdr
What are Encyclopedia Britannica’s reasons for not changing Gulf of Mexico’s name?
The Encyclopedia Britannica’s post also stated that The Gulf of Mexico is ‘an international body of water’, and the decision by the new US Government in Washington to suddenly change it is ‘ambiguous’. Encyclopedia Britannica also stressed upon the distinction between international and domestic areas, while saying that the name ‘Gulf of Mexico’ has stayed for the better part of 425 years, and they are not ..
bob, I agree BP should have specified what new technologies helped enable restart of Murlach field production. The new technologies appear primarily to be new seismic and subsea facilities. Additionally, there are significant cost savings due to leveraging nearby infrastructure at Seagull and the ETAP platform.
I do not agree with what you are say about seismic technology not having significantly improved, “…EOR and seismic were about as good in 2003…“. It has definitely improved.
In 2020 CGG acquired new 3D seismic data covering Murdach. They used Ocean Bottom Node (OBN). OBN was unproven technology in 2003 and pilot studies were still ongoing. OBN allows acquisition of long offset and full azimuth data that was critical to enhance imaging of the steeply dipping Skagerrak reservoir. CGG processed the seismic data using their proprietary Time-Lag Full Waveform Inversion which produces accurate and highly detailed subsurface velocity models. I could go on but none of this technology was around in 2003. This new 3D identified at least one undeveloped and another partially developed reservoir area. BP plans to drill both areas. The Skagerrak is a complex reservoir of steeply dipping sandstones truncated beneath the Base Cretaceous Unconformity and modern 3D seismic is likely a key technology that de-risked restarting the field.
BP also mentions in their Environmental Impact statement they will replace the original subsea manifold because it can’t supply the required metering/monitoring, chemical injection and controls. The Skagerrak production fluids cause calcite scale at the sand face and in the tubing. Asphaltene deposition is also expected. To manage this, scale inhibitors and asphaltene inhibitors will be injected downhole utilising the injection metering and control valves on the new manifold. This likely avoids costly well workovers.
Stand corrected on the seismic. But lots of “could’a, would’a” in your post. Was it mentioned as a value adder in the paywalled articles? I spent my career listening to dream merchants.
The facility mods are also nice, but are necessary to keep up enough production to avoid the clock start on mandatory asset retirement. This is relatively shallow water, and it will be an off the shelf update. IOW, they ran the numbers and decided that cosplay production was cheaper than spending the cubic GBP soon for asset retirement.
Bob, you’re wrong again. Nothing is paywalled. It’s all public. Try searching BP website for Murlach EIS and Google Murlach 3D seismic. BP has it listed as one of their top 10 projects for the year. I seriously doubt BP would spotlight Murlach if it was just a project to avoid abandonment costs.
The links WERE paywalled.
“I seriously doubt BP would spotlight Murlach if it was just a project to avoid abandonment costs?”
Why not? The “spotlighting” is essentially free, and helps sell it’s value” to those mean ol’ regulators who want them to fulfill their freely assumed obligations, The tell is that their offset Norwegian operators all have Euro’s lock boxed for P&A’s, via their wealth fund. OTOH, BP, with their vast exposure to US oil and gas regulatory avoidance practices, have learned all of the wrong lessons.,
Why not? Because institutional investors scrutinize economic metrics of the projects that have out-competed other global projects for capital and have risen to the top. FCF, $/boe dev costs, etc. BP is being smart by doing ‘infrastructure led exploration’. ILX can be highly profitable and Murlach is a perfect example that the best place to find oil is in an oil field.
From the article:”… 221m square feet a day…”.
I am sure this was a typo.
Net Zero is a sham. It achieves nothing to help the planet. Carbon Dioxide is a harmless gas essential to the life of animals and plants. Less than 1% in the atmosphere whereas more than 90% of atmospheric greenhouse gases are cloud and water vapour.
STORY TIP, not unrelated to the reopening described (above):
Young Californians (re)discover the Health Benefits of pumping oil & gas, within their Cities+!
Source:
Title & sub-title:
Correction. They have not ‘doubled the taxation rate’, they have ‘halved the fossil fuel subsidies’.
So, fixed it for you. 😉
Fossil fuel subsidies don’t really exist. Where they sorta do exist, it’s usually in the form of a tax break so that fuel is less expensive to certain groups…like farmers or arctic communities…so it’s really a subsidy to specific citizens….If you have any copies of actual government cheques to oil companies that aren’t refunds for tax overpayment…feel free to post them. In a FF subsidy expose in Canada, millions of dollars of checks paid by the gov’t to fossil fuel companies turned out to be fuel for planes, ships, and vehicles of the armed forces….
This is good news but there should be pages and pages of companies defying Milliband.