Foinaven oilfield
Foinaven oilfield is a deep-water oil development approximately west of the Shetland Islands. Together with Schiehallion, Loyal, Solan, Clair and Lancaster fields it forms the area generally termed as the West of Shetland.
Field description
Foinaven oil field was discovered in 1992. It is located at a water depth of, and was the first development made beyond the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. It is named after a mountain in the North West Highlands. Recoverable oil reserves of Foinaven are estimated to be between.Production
The Foinaven field is operated by BP in partnership with RockRose Energy. The development of the field was sanctioned in 1994 and the oil production in Foinaven started in November 1997. The phase 1 with 21 wells was completed in 2000. It had a designed oil production capacity of of oil.Oil was produced by subsea wells via a manifold, which passed through rigid flowlines and then flexible risers into a Floating Production Storage and Offloading system.
The FPSO, Petrojarl Foinaven, which was operated by Teekay Petrojarl, had an overall length of and an oil storage capacity of. Surface process facilities consisted of two parallel oil separation and gas compression trains with a combined liquid handling capacity of of crude oil and of associated gas. It was permanently stationed in the field and the crude oil was exported by shuttle tankers. Oil was exported primarily to the Flotta oil terminal in Orkney with smaller amounts going to Tranmere Oil Terminal on Merseyside.
Approximately half of the produced associated gas was used for enhanced oil recovery in the field. The remainder was exported through the West of Shetland pipeline to the Sullom Voe Terminal. Some of the exported gas was used as fuel in the Fortum operated Sullom Voe power station. The remainder was enriched with liquefied petroleum gas and exported to the Magnus platform for enhanced oil recovery in the Magnus field.
According to BP, to date, 390 million barrels of oil have been recovered from the Foinaven area.