Cambo Field Development

Cambo is an oil and gas field planned to be developed offshore Shetland Islands, Scotland, in the UK Continental Shelf.

Siccar Point Energy, a North Sea-focussed exploration and production company, holds a 70% stake and is the operator of the project, while the remaining 30% stake is held by the Royal Dutch Shell which it acquired from Siccar Point Energy in May 2018.

Although the field developers initially planned to take a final investment decision (FID) on the offshore development project in the third quarter of 2020, it has now been deferred to the second half of 2021 due to the worldwide economic impact caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The front-end engineering and design contracts for the project were awarded in August 2019 while the field development plan was submitted to the UK’s Oil and Gas Authority for approval in November 2019.

Expected to come on stream in 2024, the Cambo field is likely to produce up to 51,000 barrels of oil and 30 million cubic feet (Mcf) of gas a day in phase one. The total production life of the offshore field is estimated to be 25 years.

Discovery and development background

The Cambo oil field was discovered by Hess Corporation in 2002 and appraised by four appraisal wells as of 2012.

Austrian oil and gas group OMV became the operator of Cambo by acquiring four licenses in West of Shetland, UK from Hess in March 2014.

Siccar Point Energy completed the acquisition of OMV’s North Sea assets in the UK in January 2017 and drilled the fifth and the final appraisal well 204/10a-5 on the Cambo field in 2018.

Location and reservoir details

The Cambo field is located in approximately 1,100m-deep North Se waters, approximately 125km northwest of the Shetland Islands, Scotland, UK. It lies approximately 30km south-west of Rosebank and 50km north of Schiehallion.

The field development encompasses blocks 204/4a, 204/5a, 204/9a, and 204/10a within the UK Continental Shelf licenses P1028 and P1189.

The Cambo field sits on the Corona Ridge geological structure and its main reservoir comprises the Tertiary Hildasay sandstone. The offshore field is estimated to contain approximately 800 million barrels of recoverable oil reserves.

The Cambo field development plan

The Cambo oil and gas field is planned to be developed in two phases involving multiple wells tied back to a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

The oil will be offloaded into tankers from the FPSO, while part of the produced gas will be utilised for power generation in the FPSO and the remaining will be transported through a 70km-long export pipeline connecting the West of Shetland Pipeline (WOSP).

The field developers commissioned a front-end engineering design (FEED) study to deploy a cylindrical FPSO for the field in August 2019. The cylindrical FPSO will have a circular hull design without turret which is different from the traditional ship-shaped design.

The phase one development of the field will involve the drilling of eight new production wells and four water injection wells from two subsea drill centres. The field, in phase one, will have a total of nine production wells including the appraisal well drilled in 2018 which will be developed for production.

A semi-submersible mobile operated drilling unit (MODU) will be used for drilling the wells.

Contractors involved

Sembcorp Marine Rigs & Floaters was awarded the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for a Sevan cylindrical FPSO for the Cambo field development in August 2019.

KBR was subcontracted by Sembcorp Marine for the design of topsides and integration support.

The FEED work for the wells, subsea and riser systems is being performed by Baker Hughes (BHGE), while Genesis is the FEED contractor for the gas export pipeline of the project.

BHGE was also contracted to provide well services solutions, as well as to supply and install the subsea production equipment for the early production phases of the project in November 2017. The contract may be extended to the full field development in November 2017.

Ocean Installer was contracted to deploy construction support vessels Normand Vision and Normand Reach for executing the offshore works.

Fugro GB Marine provided environmental consultancy services for the Cambo field development project.