The Arran Field is a gas development of distal Palaeocene turbidites located in the UK Central North Sea. Arran was developed with four horizontal wells and produces over the Shearwater Platform. Shell stepped in to take over operatorship in 2018 when the previous operator withdrew shortly before sanction. The subsequent withdrawal of another of the Joint Venture and a change in equity also caused uncertainty and threatened project delivery. The resulting project timeline was ambitious and required a risk-based approach, with an integrated team working across all disciplines in close collaboration. Prioritisation to work on the biggest risks enabled the project to pass through Final Investment Decision (FID) while keeping changes to the field development plan, cost and schedule minimal. Post-FID, additional cost-saving and simplification opportunities were realised. During drilling, further optimisations were made based on operational experience through the campaign to ensure safe and competitive delivery of the production wells. This paper documents the rapid journey through the transfer of operatorship to FID and into execution and operation of a new gas development in the CNS, focussing on risk based decision making and subsequently the integrated work needed to balance the risks of change against the reward of achieving a timely and successful outcome.
Preston-Bell et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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