I had a number of responses to my comments about the main export pipelines from the North Sea – such as CATS – and the tariffs that are charged. A member of the network (senior SPE member who would rather not be named) pointed out that the “arteries” such as CATS are not such an issue as the “capillaries” – smaller interconnections – used in the gathering networks. Things like pooling of processing capacity (to remove water), compression (to build gas pressure up to enable it to be injected into the export pipes) and power (needed to run equipment) require a series of bi-lateral agreements. Smaller operators are heavily dependent on the reliability of big-players’ infrastructure. Sometimes alignment of incentives to operate effectively are missing and are, apart from oil price forecasts, the biggest economic blockers for marginal development.
The chairman of a large service company, and member of the Bestem Network, pointed me to a story by Robin Pagnamenta of The Times newspaper [Link] (Sept 9th 2015) explaining how the “great and the good” were meeting to discuss a proposal to pool infrastructure including, warehouses, subsea equipment, support vessels and other facilities. What I found interesting was, that while there was agreement that cost could be saved by pooling (non-core) operations, there was no talk about how to share the offshore installations and associated processing capacity.
Sharing bases and logistics will make things more efficient but won’t address the issues surrounding reliance on infrastructure operated by others. I can see how this will delay the inevitable slow down but not how it will facilitate drainage of marginal areas. It will not tackle the thorny area of non-common interest involved in sharing primary core assets nor maintaining shared operational schedules.
Further I can see that implementing shared arrangements for support logistics will take time to sort out, give the impression of progress but ultimately fail to unlock the opportunities that are present. Of course, go ahead and do it, but don’t think that this is all (or even the best) that can be done. Fundamental changes to the operator processes and license management in the UK sector is required, pretending that there is no problem with operator behaviour and narrow commercial interests as the JOA level cannot be avoided if we are to save this opportunity for the nation.
What do you think?
