P2680: Earlham, Orwell and Clover

Orcadian has considered a number of potential approaches to handling this gas. Our primary conclusion is that designing a facility with both CO2 recovery and N2 rejection to deliver sales gas to a nearby pipeline is probably the most costly approach. A better concept could be to use the gas to generate power and to export that power via a nearby wind farm. Potentially most of the CO2 could be removed pre-combustion to avoid having to derate the power generators, however, perfection is not required.

However, to minimise emissions we believe post-combustion capture of CO2 from the generator exhausts will also be essential.

There is one significant low risk prospect within the Application Area: the Clover prospect. If successful, this prospect could most likely be progressed withou designing a scheme which can deal with low calorie gas as it lies outside the low calorie gas trend. Clover is a simple slightly asymmetric anticlinal structure at Top Triassic level, reservoired in Bunter sands. P50 recoverable resources amount to 153 bcf and the geological chance of success is estimated to be 38%, there is little risk of gas contamination as the prospect lies on trend with the now decommissioned Orwell field.

Why such a compelling prospect remains undrilled is something of a mystery, but a block boundary cleaved Clover in two in 1971, not long after the discovery of the Sean complex, and the 33rd Round is the first opportunity for a company to licence the whole prospect since then.