North Sea – next life: extending the commercial life of producing North Sea fields

In 2015, the North Sea petroleum province was 50 years old. The celebrations were short lived because oil prices and gas prices were in free fall. The demand from the UK market had outstripped demand back in 2005 and, 10 years on, falling production and increasing operating expenditure, when coupled with falling prices, had brought the North Sea to crisis point. Many fields became unprofitable and companies began to close down. In an effort to avert the developing crisis, this work examines what options exist for better utilizing the North Sea industry, be that monetizing co-produced fluids or using the pore space once occupied by petroleum for waste products such as carbon dioxide. We briefly examine: the possibility of utilizing heat from the co-produced fluids for power generation; extracting gases and ores from co-produced fluids; and evaluation of the role that carbon dioxide could play in enhanced oil and gas recovery, as well as its ultimate long-term storage in geological deep storage.