Jersey Oil & Gas (JOG) has been awarded operatorship of three blocks in the Greater Buchan Area (GBA) of the UK North Sea in the OGA’s 31st Supplementary Offshore Licensing Round.
The award, which is subject to documentation, gives the UK exploration and production company 100% working interests in the three blocks – 20/5d & 21/1a, 21/1a and 20/4c.
The acreage won by the company includes the producing Buchan oil field and also an oil discovery J2 oil discovery made by the drilling of the well 20/5a-10Y.
Jersey Oil & Gas said that the awarded acreage is contiguous with the company’s existing interest in licence P2170, covering blocks 20/5b and 21/1d. P2170 is where the 2017 Verbier (J62-J64) oil discovery was made with a low case operator estimate of the prospect being nearly 25mmboe of discovered resource.
The licence also has significant identified prospective resources, said the company which has a stake of 18% and is partnered by Equinor UK (70%), and CIECO V&C (UK), which holds 12% stake.
Jersey Oil & Gas CEO Andrew Benitz said: “These awards are the kind of value creating opportunities available to nimble independent companies operating in the North Sea today and stem from an intensive two-year work effort behind the scenes by JOG to prepare today’s winning applications.
“By way of low-risk accumulation of discovered resource volumes, this is by far the most significant event for JOG since its inception and we are excited to start work on this new project immediately.”
Greater Buchan Area acreage to provide JOG with an to a future major new area development
The company said that along with its stake in the Verbier discovery, the newly awarded acreage gives significant scope to potentially set up and operate a major new area development in the future. Jersey Oil & Gas expects the area to have more than 100mmboe of discovered resources along with the more than 300mmboe of identified mean prospective resources estimated to be in place in the Greater Buchan Area.
In another development, the company has signed a three-month option agreement with Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor under which the latter has been given an option to acquire 50% stake in Blocks 20/5d and 21/1a (the Buchan Blocks) containing the Buchan oil field and J2 oil discovery.
If the option is exercised, Jersey Oil & Gas will remain as licence operator of the Buchan Blocks and Equinor will reimburse it for its 50% share of costs pertaining to the licence applications.
