North Sea license extension enables more time to revamp field development plan

November 24, 2025, by Melisa Cavcic

Ping Petroleum, an independent upstream oil and gas company incorporated in Bermuda, has secured a multi-year license extension for a giant undeveloped North Sea field on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS).

Pilot field development plan; Source: Orcadian Energy

While revealing the extension of license P2244, the company’s partner, Orcadian Energy (18.75% carried interest), said that the UK’s North Sea oil and gas regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), approved a three-year extension to the second term of the Pilot license, with a new expiration date now set as December 1, 2028.

This license contains the Pilot field for which the operator is preparing a refreshed sub-surface description, informed by the high-quality 3D seismic provided by TGS, and supported by the Orcadian team as they progress the project towards a final investment decision (FID).

Steve Brown, Orcadian’s CEO, commented:“Pilot can be a new low-carbon hub on the Western Platform in the Central North Sea with the potential to produce a total recoverable resource of well over 100 mmbbl from Pilot and adjacent discoveries. Exploration success and renewed licensing of near-infrastructure discoveries could raise the potential recovery from this hub to nearly 500 mmbbl.

“This licence extension our operator the time and space to design a low-emissions development scheme that can thrive in the post-EPL fiscal regime that has been proposed and consulted on by Treasury, which everyone in the industry is awaiting with bated breath and which is the fiscal regime that matters for Orcadian’s projects.”

The company’s partner claims that securing this license extension to enable the development and submission of an updated field development plan has been essential for the operator to deliver a plan that maximizes oil recovery and minimizes carbon dioxide emissions in the production process.

Pilot, which was discovered by PetroFina in 1989, is said to have contingent resources of 79 MMbbl of a viscous oil ranging in gravity from 17º API in the South of the reservoir to 12º API in the North. In planning the Pilot development, polymer flooding and wind power have been picked to transform the production of viscous oil into a cleaner and greener process.

New operator takes the reins at UK’s huge undeveloped field ahead of development plan submission

Business & Finance

Polymer is said to significantly reduce fluid handling requirements and hence energy consumption as well as boost recovery. Pilot is intended to be amongst the lowest carbon-emitting oil production facilities in the world.

As a result, Ping is progressing a low-emissions, phased field development plan for the project based upon a polymer flood of the reservoir, a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO), and provision of power from a floating wind turbine or a local wind farm.