First Oil from Kraken

First oil from EnQuest's offshore North Sea project Kraken was delivered on June 23.

Kraken is one of the largest new oil fields to come on-stream in the U.K. North Sea in a decade with estimated reserves of around128 MMboe. So far, drill centers 1 and 2 are complete, and work continues on drill center 3. This further production capacity is expected to come online in 2018.

The Kraken FPSO vessel has the largest liquid handling capacity in the U.K. continental shelf. Gross peak oil production is expected to be approximately 50,000 barrels of oil per day.

"The start-up of EnQuest's Kraken heavy oil field is a welcome boost for the U.K. oil and gas industry. Although other heavy oil fields have produced in the U.K., this is the first of a batch of projects that were discovered some time ago but were previously deemed too challenging technically to develop," said Kevin Swann, research manager, U.K. Upstream, at Wood Mackenzie.

"Kraken is the largest new field due to start in 2017, and we estimate production will average 20,000 b/d for the year. This would account for 15 percent of year-on-year production growth in the U.K. in 2017. We expect production to peak at almost 50,000 b/d in 2019, providing 4.5 percent of overall U.K. liquids production that year."

EnQuest has an interest of 70.5 percent in $2.5 billion Kraken development, with its partner in the development Cairn Energy having the remaining 29.5 percent. Kraken is EnQuest’s seventh operated production hub.