Foinaven oilfield


Foinaven oil field is deepwater 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 October 1990. It is located at a water depth of, and is 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 Exploration in partnership with Rock Rose 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 has the designed oil production capacity of of oil.
Oil is produced by subsea wells via a manifold, which passes through rigid flowlines and then flexible risers into a Floating Production Storage and Offloading system. Surface process facilities consist of two parallel oil separation and gas compression trains with a combined liquid handling capacity of of crude oil and of associated gas.
The FPSO, Petrojarl Foinaven, which is operated by Teekay Petrojarl, has an overall length of and an oil storage capacity of. It is permanently stationed in the field and the crude oil is exported by shuttle tankers. Oil is exported primarily to the Flotta oil terminal in Orkney with smaller amount is going to Tranmere Oil Terminal on Merseyside.
Approximately half of the produced associated gas is used for enhanced oil recovery of the field. Another half of natural gas is exported through the West of Shetland pipeline to the Sullom Voe Terminal. Some of the exported gas is used as fuel in the Fortum operated Sullom Voe power station. The remainder is enriched with liquefied petroleum gas and exported to the Magnus platform for enhanced oil recovery in Magnus field.