Published by the DTI Oil & Gas Directorate for the reservoir engineering and IOR community in the UK.
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People & Projects

Dr Chris Lloyd

EPSRC has recently announced that grants have been made in relation to oil and gas extraction to the following projects:

• Vision-based Experimental Investigation of Two-Phase Flow in Pipelines: Methodology and Application to Dr. S Fu of Cranfield University School of Engineering.
• Geoststistical Analysis of Permeability of Visibly Homogeneous Sedimentary Structures with Probe Permeametry to Dr. CD Lloyd of Queen's University of Belfast.

Dr Chris Lioyd, School of Geography, Queen's University Belfast

Chris Lloyd's research interests focus on the analysis of spatial data (primarily in environmental contexts). In particular, research focuses on geostatistics, geographical information systems (GIS), remote sensing and archaeology. This work has included the use and development of non-stationary geostatistical models in characterising, sampling and mapping spatial phenomena. A major concern of this work has been in assessing the accuracy of digital elevation models (DEMs) derived through interpolation. In addition, GIS-related research is continuing with colleagues in the Historical Geography of Landscape, Place and Identity research theme and the Society, Space and Political Economy research theme.

• Non-Linear Response of Moored Floating Structures to Steep Waves to Dr. Q Ma at Robert Gordon University.

The Magnus EOR project has won the overall award at BP's inaugural Helios Awards presented at a ceremony in London in December 2001.

This was the culmination of a process involving 1,124 applications, three rounds of judging and a tremendous exchange of great stories about living the brand. The exciting evening culminated with Lord John Browne BP's CEO announcing that The Magnus EOR Project - unlocking environmental and commercial value for four assets had won the overall Human Energy Award.

Magnus was a declining field where the potential for enhanced oil recovery had been recognised for several years, but, without a suitable source of gas the project was not viable. Foinaven and Schiehallion had a surfeit of gas which was being disposed of, and lost, by injection into nearby formations. Export of the gas was uneconomic.

The idea of taking gas north instead of south directly to market, an idea which seemed illogical to many within BP and our partners, linking four Assets together in a value chain has made two uneconomic projects (EOR and WoS gas export) attractive.

The delivery of this major project with its complex commercial agreements in 32 months from idea to reality would not have been possible without the dedicated project team which was established from inception, the full commitment of the Assets involved and the enrolment and support of our partners.

This $500 million project requires construction of facilities at four 'brownfield' sites plus a major pipeline in an environmentally sensitive area. Magnus EOR will take gas from the West of Shetlands Foinaven, Schiehallion and Loyal fields (WoS) through a new 400 km 20 inch diameter pipeline, via the Sullom Voe Terminal, to the Magnus platform where it will be used in a miscible gas injection scheme. LPGs will be injected at SVT to make the lean WoS gas miscible with Magnus reservoir fluids. Surplus gas may be exported via the existing Magnus gas export pipeline.

The infrastructure provided at Sullom Voe (SVT) will allow sweet gas instead of diesel to be used for power generation, delivering significant environmental benefits and facilitating power export from the Terminal to the Shetland Islands. The project has been externally benchmarked as providing top quartile cost and schedule performance.

The Project will deliver some 50 million barrels of extra oil from the EOR process. The West of Shetlands fields will export, and sell gas which would otherwise be lost by disposal into subsea injection wells. Exporting the gas will relieve a production constraint in the West of Shetlands fields allowing increased production in the short term. SVT will burn clean fuel gas instead of diesel during periods of low throughput from the incoming oil pipelines. CO2 emissions will be reduced by 600,000 metric tonnes over the lifetime of the project.

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