About Beauly & Burghley

The Beauly field was discovered in 1998 and first oil was achieved in 2001. The Beauly Field produces from a single subsea well, located approximately 5 km to the Balmoral FPV.

The Burghley field was discovered in 2005 and commenced production in 2010. The Burghley Field produces from a single subsea well, located approximately 10km to the Balmoral FPV.

About the facilities

The Beauly field was discovered in 1998 and first oil was achieved in 2001. The Beauly Field produces from a single subsea horizontal production well, tied back to the existing Balmoral FPV approximately 5 km to the north-west, via a single 6” production pipeline, a piggybacked 2” gas lift pipeline and a control and chemical injection umbilical.

The Burghley field was discovered in 2005 and commenced production in 2010. The Burghley Field produces from a single subsea well tied back to the Balmoral FPV. The Burghley well is tied back via a 10” production pipeline with a piggy-backed 4” gas lift pipeline and an electro-hydraulic control umbilical.

Both fields were produced via the Premier Oil Operated Balmoral FPV. From the FPV the hydrocarbons were transported to the Forties Charlie platform via a c. 14.5 km export line. The Balmoral FPV has already been moved off-station and the risers are laid on the seabed. The Beauly and Burghley wells are currently suspended. The subsea infrastructure, pipelines and umbilicals have been disconnected at the Xmas trees and at the Balmoral template. They have been flushed and cleaned to reduce oil in water content to as low as reasonably practicable and are filled with filtered seawater or, in the case of some of the umbilical cores, water based hydraulic fluid.

Facilities to be decommissioned

Removal, onshore dismantling, recycling and disposal of subsea infrastructure.

Multiple options are being considered for the decommissioning of the Beauly & Burghley Area infrastructure, all of which have undergone a screening process to identify those that are feasible. Those feasible options for the decommissioning of the Beauly & Burghley subsea facilities and pipelines have been subject to a Comparative Assessment (CA) process to determine the best options with regards to their safety, environmental, societal, technical and economic performance.