British firm gets its hands on partial stake in giant undeveloped North Sea oil field

Britain’s independent upstream company Viaro Energy, through its operating subsidiary RockRose Energy, has received regulatory approval related to a license, containing a huge undeveloped oil field on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS), in which the firm decided to acquire a partial interest from EnQuest, a London Stock Exchange-listed energy player. This move marks Viaro’s entry into the Northern North Sea.

In December 2023, EnQuest inked a deal with RockRose to sell a 15% working interest in the Bressay field and the FPSO EnQuest Producer in the UK sector of the North Sea for a total consideration of £46 million. Both of these assets are not currently in a production phase. The FPSO previously worked in 80 meters of water 320 km southeast of Aberdeen in license blocks 30/24c and 30/25c from 2015 until September 2020, when it was moved off station and moored at the oil terminal jetty at Nigg.

The FPSO EnQuest Producer, which processed production from the Alma and Galia fields that were re-developed as a single joint development, remains warm-stacked at Nigg. While the cash settlement was realized in January 2024, EnQuest plans to continue reviewing options around the full Bressay development, including adding another partner to lower its equity share of development cost.

Following the recently completed acquisition agreement with EnQuest, Viaro confirms that the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) has given its stamp of approval for the assignment of the Bressay oil field license. The company highlights that the proposed early production system development under review has an estimated capital expenditure of £600 million, with £90 million being RockRose’s net share. 

Viaro intends to work with EnQuest on advancing the development concept and the field development plan (FDP) to tap into approximately 115 MMbbls of 2C resources at Bressay, which entails a potential gas tie-back to the Kraken oil field in the initial development phase. Located in UKCS blocks 3/28a, 3/27b, 3/28b, 9/2a, and 9/3a of the Northern North Sea, east of the Shetland Islands, Bressay was discovered in 1978.

The British firm underlines that Bressay is viewed as one of the largest undeveloped oil fields on the UK Continental Shelf, thanks to an estimated potential to extract around 200 million boe. EnQuest is the operator of the Bressay field, following a deal with Equinor in January 2021.

Viaro is actively pursuing decarbonization of oil and gas infrastructure. To this end, the firm joined forces with newcleo to reduce emissions with the help of nuclear technology. The collaboration is centered around the future deployment of advanced modular reactors (AMR).