Premier Oil evaluating Tolmount rig, platform bids

Premier Oil, a London-listed oil and gas company, has begun evaluating tender offers for major project scopes on its Tolmount gas field in the UK North Sea.

In a trading and operations update on Thursday, Premier Oil said it had received tender offers for major project scopes.

Premier Oil is now evaluating bids it received for the pipeline, drilling rig, and platform to be used as part of the Tolmount development.

The company also said that offshore and onshore front-end engineering design (FEED) work on the Tolmount field in the Southern Gas Basin was “progressing well.”

To remind, FEED contract for the Tolmount development was awarded to Wood Group in April. Under the scope of the deal, Wood Group would provide topsides, jacket, pipeline, flow assurance and subsea engineering expertise for the development’s offshore assets, export pipeline, and the onshore terminal.

“Alongside the FEED process, the draft Field Development plan has been submitted to the OGA and the heads of terms signed with Dana Petroleum and CATS Management Limited in respect of the infrastructure partnership for the Tolmount development, is being progressed into final documentation ready for development sanction planned for the first half of 2018,” Premier said on Thursday.

Premier selected a development concept in February 2017, comprising of a standalone normally unmanned installation (NUI) and a new gas export pipeline to shore.

As for the Tolomount field itself, the original discovery was made by E.ON in 2011. The Tolmount then became a part of the Premier Oil portfolio after Premier bought E.On’s UK North Sea assets in early 2016 for $120 million.

At the time of the acquisition, the company dubbed Tolmount as “one of the largest discoveries in the Southern Gas Basin in recent years with estimated gross resources of 200Bcf-1Tcf.”

It is worth mentioning that Premier confirmed in the same update on Thursday that first oil from its Catcher field in the North Sea remains on schedule for December.