NEPTUNE Energy has passed a milestone on a big North Sea field development project, on which it has faced challenges amid the coronavirus crisis.
Private equity-backed Neptune said it has started the subsea construction phase of the development of the 50 million-barrel Seagull field east of Aberdeen.
In May Neptune said first oil from Neptune was likely to be delayed by 12 to 15 months until the fourth quarter of 2022. The company highlighted the impact of the Covid 19 coronavirus pandemic on its supply chain and logistics.
READ MORE: North Sea oil and gas firm eyes bargain acquisitions amid 'market dislocation'
The slump in oil and gas prices triggered by the coronavirus crisis has also made life difficult for firms in the North Sea.
Neptune is developing Seagull with BP and JAPEX. The field will be tied back to the BP-operated ETAP processing facility.
Neptune’s UK Managing Director, Alexandra Thomas, said Seagull is an important project for the company, its partners and the UK.
She added: “We continue to work with our contractors and suppliers, focussing on the safe deployment of people, vessels, and equipment and managing the challenges associated with the impacts of the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic.”
TechnipFMC has started pipelay work on Seagull.
Separately, the shake-up at West of Shetland oil pioneer Hurricane Energy has continued after another director departed from its board.
The company said Alan Parsley had resigned as a non-executive director yesterday.
READ MORE: Chief executive quits at pioneering Shetland oil firm as hopes of boom in area fade
Mr Parsley joined the board in June when he succeeded Roy Kelly as the representative of the Kerogen Capital private equity business, which has a stake in Hurricane. The same month Hurricane Energy’s founder, Robert Trice, resigned as chief executive.
Hurricane stoked excitement about the potential of the West of Shetland area after making finds in an under-explored geological zone.
However, the company has suffered setbacks since starting production from the Lancaster field last year.
The results of recent technical work suggested Lancaster and another find nearby could be much smaller than first thought. In its annual results announcement this month the company said it had cut the valuation of the Lancaster field by around $240m.
Sector veteran Antony Maris became chief executive the day of the results announcement.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here